TRIUMPHANT 
PLUTOCRACY 


The  Story  or 

American   Public   Life 

from  1870  to  1920 


By 

R.  F.  PETTIGREW 

Formerly  United  States  Senator 
from  South  Dakota 


Printed  by  THE  ACADEMY  PRESS 

112    Fourth  Avenue,  New  York  City 


FOREWORD 

AMERICAN  PUBLIC  LIFE 

The  American  people  should  know  the  truth  about"1 
American  public  life.    They  have  been  lied  to  so  much 
and  hoodwinked  so  often  that  it  would  seem  only  fair 
for    them    to    have    at    least    one    straight-from-the-  ' 
shoulder  statement  concerning  this  government  "of  the 
people,  by  the  people  and  for  the  people,"  about  whose 
inner  workings  the  people  know  almost  nothing. 

The  common  people  of  the  United  States,  like  the 
same  class  of  people  in  every  other  country,  mean 
well,  but  they  are  ill-informed.  Floundering  about  in 
their  ignorance,  they  are  tricked  and  robbed  by  those 
who  have  the  inside  information  and  who  therefore 
know  how  to  take  advantage  of  every  turn  in  the 
wheel  of  fortune.  The  people  voted  for  Roosevelt  be 
cause  he  talked  of  "trust-busting"  at  the  same  time 
that  he  was  sanctioning  the  purchase  of  the  Tennessee 
Coal  and  Iron  Company  by  the  Steel  Trust.  They  sup 
ported  Wilson  "because  he  kept  us  out  of  war"  at 
the  same  time  that  Wilson  was  making  preparations 
to  enter  the  war.  The  rulers  can  negotiate  "secret 
treaties"  at  home  and  abroad.  The  people,  knowing 
nothing  of  either  the  theory  or  the  practice  of  secret 
diplomacy,  commit  all  sorts  of  follies  for  which  they 
themselves  must  later  foot  the  bill. 

At  the  present  moment  the  American  people  are 
being  taught  "Americanism" — taught  by  the  same 
gentry  who  are  making  away  with  billions  of  dollars, 
sometimes  "legally"  and  sometimes  without  any  sanc 
tion  in  the  law. 

The  most  prominent  among  the  leaders  of  the  Amer 
icanization  campaign  were  the  most  prominent  among 


war  profiteers.  They  are  the  owners  of  resources 
and  industries — the  owners  of  America.  It  is  from 
them  that  the  preparedness  agitation  came  in  1915  and 
1916,  and  it  is  from  them  that  the  new  preparedness 
agitation  is  coming  now. 

Here  is  a  newspaper  story  in  the  New  York  Herald 
(November  7,  1920)  which  illustrates  the  point.  The 
story,  evidently  inspired  by  the  War  Department,  is; 
devoted  to  a  description  of  certain  big  guns  and  cer 
tain  new  forms  of  tanks  that  the  government  is  at 
the  present  time  busy  manufacturing.  The  country 
was  caught  napping  once,  says  the  writer,  but  the 
War  Department  is  going  to  be  sure  that  the  same- 
thing  does  not  happen  again.  Therefore,  it  is  build 
ing  up  its  machinery  now,  while  the  country  is  stil 
at  peace.  In  this  work  the  War  Department  is  as 
sisted  "by  some  of  the  leading  industrial  spirits  of 
the  country,  who  are  keeping  up  the  same  enthusiastic 
devotion  to  the  service  of  their  country  they  displayed, 
in  the  war.  A  little  army  of  dollar-a-year  men,  headed 
by  Benedict  Crowell,  former  Assistant  Secretary  of 
War,  has  mobilized  itself  under  the  name  of  Army 
Ordnance  Association  and  is  giving  its  valuable  time: 
to  the  country  without  costing  the  government  a  single 
cent." 

Who  are  the  members  of  this  "little  army"  of  pa 
triots?  The  Herald  gives  the  answer  in  full.  Besides 
Mr.  Crowell,  there  are,  in  the  Army  Ordnance  Asso 
ciation,  William  Wheeler  Coleman,  president  of  the 
Bucyrus  Company  of  Milwaukee,  Wis. ;  Charles  Eliot 
Warren,  past  president  of  the  American  Bankers'  As 
sociation;  Ralph  Crews,  of  the  law  firm  of  Sherman  & 
Sterling,  New  York  City;  Guy  Eastman  Tripp,  chair 
man  of  the  board  of  directors  of  the  Westinghouse 
Company;  Samuel  McRoberts,  of  the  National  City 
Bank  of  New  York;  Waldo  Calvin  Bryant,  president 
of  the  Bryant  Electric  Company;  Frank  Augustus 
Scott,  former  chairman  of  the  War  Industries  Board; 
Robert  P.  Lamont,  president  of  the  American  Steel 


Foundries  of  Chicago,  and  C.  L.  Harrison,  of  the  First 
National  Bank  of  Cincinnati. 

What  do  these  patriotic  business  men  hope  to  gain 
by  their  devotion  to  the  preparedness  program  of  the 
War  Department?  The  answer  appears  later  in  the 
same  articles:  "It  is  this  desire  to  keep  abreast  of 
the  world's  performances  in  ordnance  that  has 
prompted  the  War  Department  to  ask  for  an  increased 
appropriation  next  year.  The  department's  appropria 
tion  last  year  was  $377,246,944.  The  estimates  for 
this  year  call  for  an  appropriation  of  approximately 
$814,000,000."  The  difference,  or  $435,000,000,  repre 
sents  the  value  of  contracts  that  will  go  to  the  business 
interests  of  the  United  States. 

Again,  bankers,  lawyers,  manufacturers  and  busi 
ness  men  are  going  to  save  the  country — not  by  keep 
ing  us  out  of  war,  but  by  getting  ready  for  the  next 
war.  It  is  these  men  who  dominate  the  life  and 
thought  as  well  as  the  industries .  of  these  United 
States,  and  it  is  just  such  men  that  have  been  in 
control  of  the  United  States  ever  since  I  entered  the 
Senate  thirty  years  ago. 

It  is  fifty  years  since  I  began  to  take  an  interest  in 
public  affairs.  During  those  years  I  have  been  par 
ticipating,  more  or  less  actively,  in  public  life — first 
as  a  government  surveyor,  then  as  a  member  of  the 
Legislature  of  Dakota;  as  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  and,  finally,  as  a  member  of  the  United 
States  Senate.  Since  1880  I  have  known  the  important 
men  in  both  the  Republican  and  Democratic  parties ;  I 
have  known  the  members  of  the  diplomatic  corps;  I 
have  known  personally  the  last  ten  presidents  of  the 
United  States,  and  I  have  known  personally  the  lead 
ing  business  men  who  backed  the  political  parties  and 
who  made  and  unmade  the  presidents.  For  half  a 
century  I  have  known  public  men  and  have  been  on 
the  inside  of  business  and  politics.  Through  all  of 
that  time  I  have  lived  and  worked  with  the  rulers 
of  America. 


When  I  entered  the  arena  of  public  affairs  in  1870, 
the  United  States,  with  a  population  of  thirty-eight 
millions,  was  just  recovering  from  the  effects  of  the 
Civil  War.  The  economic  life  of  the  old  slave-holding 
South  lay  in  ruins.  Even  in  the  North,  the  Panic  of 
1873  swept  over  the  business  world,  taking  its  toll  i:i 
commercial  failures  and  unemployment  and  an  increase 
in  the  number  of  tenant  farmers.  The  policy  of  send 
ing  carpet-bagging  rascals  into  the  embittered  Sout'i 
hindered  reconciliation,  and  sectional  differences  pre 
vented  any  effective  co-operation  between  the  two  por 
tions  of  the  country.  The  result  was  a  heavy  loss  i:i 
productive  power  and  in  political  position.  Throug'i 
this  period,  the  United  States  was  an  inconsequential 
factor  in  international  affairs. 

The  transformation  from  that  day  to  this  is  com 
plete.  With  three  times  the  population;  with  .sectior- 
alism  practically  eliminated;  with  the  South  recoverei 
economically  and  the  economic  power  of  the  Norti 
vastly  increased ;  with  more  wealth  than  any  other  five 
nations  of  the  world  combined;  with  the  credit  of  the 
world  in  her  hands;  with  large  undeveloped,  or  only 
slightly  developed  resources ;  with  a  unified  population 
and  a  new  idea  of  world  importance,  the  United  States 
stands  as  probably  the  richest  and  most  influential 
among  the  great  nations. 

I  witnessed  the  momentous  changes  and  participated 
in  them.  While  they  were  occurring  I  saw  something 
else  that  filled  me  with  dread.  I  saw  the  government 
of  the  United  States  enter  into  a  struggle  with  the 
trusts,  the  railroads  and  the  banks,  and  I  watched  while 
the  business  forces  won  the  contest.  I  saw  the  forms 
of  republican  government  decay  through  disuse,  and  I 
saw  them  betrayed  by  the  very  men  who  were  sworn 
to  preserve  and  uphold  them.  I  saw  the  empire  of 
business,  with  its  innumerable  ramifications,  grow  up 
around  and  above  the  .structure  of  government.  I 
watched  the  power  over  public  affairs  shift  from  the 
weakened  structure  of  republican  political  machinery 

8 


to  the  vigorous  new  business  empire.  Strong  men  who 
saw  what  was  occurring  no  longer  went  into  politics. 
Instead,  they  entered  the  field  of  industry,  and  with 
them  the  seat  of  the  government  of  the  United  States 
was  shifted  from  Washington  to  Wall  Street.  With 
this  shift,  there  disappeared  from  active  public  life 
those  principles  of  republican  government  that  I  had 
learned  to  believe  were  the  means  of  safeguarding 
liberty.  After  the  authority  over  public  affairs  had 
been  transferred  to  the  men  of  business,  I  saw  the 
machinery  of  business  pass  from  the  hands  of  indi 
viduals  into  the  hands  of  corporations — artificial  per 
sons — created  in  the  imagination  of  lawyers,  and  given 
efficacy  by  the  sanction  of  the  courts  and  of  the  law. 
WThen  I  turned  to  the  reading  of  American  history,  I 
discovered  that  these  things  had  been  going  on  from 
the  beginnings  of  our  government,  that  they  had 
grown  up  with  it,  and  were  an  essential  part  of  its 
structure.  From  surprise  and  disgust  I  turned  to  anal 
ysis  and  reason  and,  for  the  past  twenty  years,  I  have 
been  watching  the  public  life  of  the  United  States  with 
an  understanding  mind.  For  a  long  time  I  have  known 
what  was  going  on  in  the  United  States.  Today  I  think 
that  I  know  why  it  is  going  on. 

When  I  look  back  over  the  half  century  that  has 
passed  since  I  first  entered  public  life,  I  can  hardly 
realize  that  the  America,  which  I  knew  and  believed  in 
as  a  young  man  in  the  twenties,  could  have  changed 
so  completely  in  so  short  a  time.  Even  when  I  know 
the  reason  for  the  change,  it  is  hard  to  accept  it  as 
a  reality. 

Many  of  the  public  men  who  have  lived  and  worked 
in  the  United  States  during  the  past  century  have  writ 
ten  their  impressions  of  public  affairs.  Bentpn,  Elaine, 
Grant  and  Sherman  discussed  the  public  life  of  the 
middle  of  the  last  century.  Since  then,  there  have  been 
many  autobiographies  and  memoirs.  I  have  read  these 
books  carefully,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  not  one  of  the 
writers  is  at  the  same  time  a  student  and  a  realist. 

9 


First  of  all,  they  have  written  about  politics,  with 
very  little  or  no  attention  to  the  economic  forces  that 
were  shaping  politics.     In  the  second  place,  too  many 
of  them  have  written  the  agreeable  things  and  left 
the  disagreeable  ones  unsaid.    In  the  third  place,  they 
have  written  what  they  believed  should  have  happened 
rather  than  what  actually  did  happen.    Fourth,  and  by 
1  far  the  most  important,  each  of  these  men  has  written 
I  as  a  member  of  a  ruling  class,  pleased  with  himself, 
i  and  satisfied  that  rule  by  his  class  was  the  best  thing 
j  for  the  community.    The  pictures  that  these  men  give 
are  like  the  decisions  of  our  courts — built  of  prece 
dents  rather  than  of  realities. 

It  is  my  ambition  to  tell  my  fellow-countrymen  what 
has  happened  during  the  half  century  that  I  have 
known  public  life.  I  know  what  went  on,  because  1 
saw  it.  I  want  others  to  have  the  same  knowledge 
During  my  public  career  I  have  received  very  definite 
impressions,  and  I  am  anxious  to  pass  those  impres 
sions  on  to  others.  I  want  to  do  this  because  I  believe 
that  my  country  is  in  danger;  I  believe  that  the  liber 
ties  of  the  American  people  are  already  well-nigh  de 
stroyed;  I  believe  that  we  are  moving  forward  to  i. 
crisis  of  immense  significance  to  the  future  of  the 
American  people,  and  the  ideas  and  ideals  for  whict 
the  United  States  has  stood  before  the  world.  We  are; 
far  along  on  the  road  to  empire,  and  we  are  traveling- 
faster  towards  that  goal  than  any  nation  in  history 
ever  traveled. 

It  is  with  that  purpose  and  in  that  spirit  that  I  have 
written  this  book,  and  it  is  in  that  spirit  that  I  ask 
them  to  consider  and  ponder  what  I  have  said  there. 


10 


1.     LAND  GRABBING 

My  first  struggle  with  the  business  interests,  after  I 
entered  the  Senate  in  1889,  came  over  the  question  of 
land-grabbing.  At  that  time  the  Federal  Government 
still  owned  millions  of  acres  of  valuable  timber,  mineral 
and  agricultural  land  that  might  easily  have  been  util 
ized  for  public  advantage  instead  of  for  private  gain. 
The  attorneys  and  other  representatives  that  the 
vested  interests  maintained  in  Washington  were  busy 
grabbing  this  land.  I  set  myself  to  save  it  for  the 
people. 

I  was  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  public  Land  Laws 
of  the  United  States  as  I  had  been  a  practicing  lawyer 
before  the  Land  Department,  a  surveyor  on  the  public 
domain,  and  beside  that  I  had  planted  a  timber  claim 
with  white  ash  trees  which  stand  today.  I,  therefore, 
sought  appointment  upon  the  Senate  Committee  on 
Public  Lands,  of  which  Preston  B.  Plumb,  of  Kansas, 
was  Chairman.  In  that  position  I  had  an  excellent  op 
portunity  to  see  land  grabbing  from  the  inside. 

The  House  passed  a  bill  to  repeal  the  timber  culture 
law  "and  for  other  purposes"  in  February,  1890.  When 
the  bill  reached  the  Senate  it  was  referred  to  the  Com 
mittee  on  Public  Lands,  and  Chairman  Plumb  appointed 
Senator  Walthall  of  Mississippi  and  me  as  a  sub-com 
mittee  to  consider  the  bill.  I  gave  the  matter  very 
careful  attention  and,  after  some  weeks  of  study  and 
work,  I  reported  the  bill  to  the  Senate  in  such  a  form 
that  it  involved  a  complete  revision  of  the  Federal  land 
laws.  The  bill,  containing  nineteen  sections,  finally 
passed  the  Senate  on  the  16th  of  September,  1890. 

Immediately,  upon  its  passage,  a  conference  was  re 
quested  and  Senators  Plumb,  Walthall  and  Pettigrew 
were  appointed  as  Conference  Committee  on  the  part 
of  the  Senate.  In  the  House  the  bill  was  referred  to 
the  Committee  on  Public  Lands,  which  reported  it 
back,  early  in  the  next  session  of  Congress,  agreeing 
to  the  Conference  asked  for  by  the  Senate  and  appoint- 

11 


ing  three  conferees,  Payson  of  Illinois,  Holman  of  Indi 
ana  and  Pickler  of  South  Dakota.  Plumb  did  not  act 
with  the  Conference  Committee.  Walthall  of  Missis 
sippi  and  myself  took  full  charge  of  the  work  and, 
after  many  conferences,  we  finally  agreed  upon  and  did 
report  to  each  house  a  bill  just  as  the  Senate  had 
passed  it,  with  five  additional  sections,  making  twenty- 
four  in  all.  The  24th  section  was  as  follows : 

"SEC.  24,  p.  1103,  51st  CONGRESS,  MARCH  3,  1891. 
"That  the  President  of  the  United  States  may  from  time 
to  time  set  apart  and  reserve,  in  any  State  or  Territory 
having  public  land  bearing  forests  in  any  part  of  the  public 
lands  wholly  or  in  part  covered  with  timber  or  undergrowth, 
whether  of  commercial  value  or  not  as  public  reservations 
and  the  President  shall  by  public  proclamation  declare  the 
establishment  of  such  reservations  and  the  limits  thereof." 

I  give  this  section  in  full,  first,  because  it  resulted  in 
departure  in  public  policy  that  was  highly  advanta 
geous  to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  second, 
because  it  led  to  one  of  the  most  bitterly  fought  par 
liamentary  struggles  in  which  I  have  ever  participated. 

Section  24  was  placed  in  the  bill  at  my  suggestion  to 
take  the  place  of  the  timber  culture  law,  which  never 
had  produced  any  timber.  I  had  offered  this  section 
in  the  Senate  Committee  on  Public  Lands,  but  the  West 
ern  Senators  were  opposed  to  "locking  up"  the  country 
in  forest  reservations.  In  conference,  while  I  had  some 
difficulty,  I  secured  an  agreement  which  included  this 
section  in  the  bill. 

Nothing  was  done  under  Section  24  until  after  Cleve 
land  commenced  his  second  term  and  then  he,  as  Presi 
dent,  appointed  a  commission  of  eastern  people  to  go 
out  into  the  Western  country  —  Dakota,  Wyoming, 
Colorado — and  establish  the  forest  reservations.  These 
men  rode  about  the  country  in  a  Pullman  car,  and  pre 
scribed  the  boundaries  of  forest  reservations  without 
any  discriminating  judgment.  For  example,  they 
established  the  reservation  of  Black  Hills  in  South  Da 
kota,  and  embraced  within  its  boundaries  the  city  of 

12 


Deadwood,  and  the  towns  of  Leed,  Custer  and  Hill  City, 
which  contained  thousands  of  people  who  were  mining, 
home-building  and  getting  the  timber  necessary  for 
these  activities  from  the  surrounding  forests.  Once 
these  reservations  were  established  it  became  impos 
sible  to  cut  any  timber  upon  them;  consequently  the 
people  who  had  made  their  homes  in  the  reserved  area 
were  practically  compelled  to  move. 

Since  no  law  had  been  passed  for  the  administration 
of  these  newly  created  reserves,  the  country  was  com 
pletely  locked  up.  No  new  people  could  go  in  and 
settle,  and  those  already  there  found  themselves  re 
stricted  on  every  hand.  The  result  was  a  general  dis 
satisfaction  with  the  whole  policy  of  forest  reserva 
tions. 

I  realized  that,  unless  some  change  was  made,  the 
whole  policy  would  be  discredited,  and  therefore  I  se 
cured  legislation  suspending  reservations  already  lo 
cated  until  proper  legislation  could  be  secured  for  their 
administration. 

Finally,  at  my  request,  Walcott,  who  was  then  at  the 
head  of  the  Geological  Survey,  prepared  an  amend 
ment  to  the  Sundry  Civil  Appropriation  Bill,  which  I 
offered  in  the  Senate,  providing  for  the  administration 
of  these  forests.  After  this  law  for  administration  was 
enacted,  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  informed  me  that 
he  would  make  the  boundaries  of  the  Black  Hills  Forest 
Reservation  whatever  I  might  recommend.  I  went  out 
to  the  Black  Hills,  held  meetings  of  the  people,  and  ex 
plained  to  them  the  purpose  of  the  Forest  Reservation. 
In  every  instance  they  passed  resolutions  in  favor  of 
being  embraced  with  the  Forest  Reservation  as  admin 
istered  under  the  new  laws.  By  this  direct  appeal  to 
the  people  most  intimately  concerned  I  was  able  to  en 
large  the  reservation  by  over  200,000  acres. 

When  I  returned  to  Washington,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Interior  asked  me  to  suggest  such  rules  and  regulations 
as  would  best  enable  his  Department  to  administer  the 
forest  reservations  laws.  In  accordance  with  this  re- 

13 


quest  I  wrote  out  the  rules  and  regulations  which  were 
afterwards  adopted  by  him. 

I  remember  in  one  of  the  regulations  that  I  provided 
for  sowing  the  Black  Hills  spruce  seed  upon  the  snow 
in  all  the  open  parks  and  denuded  places,  so  that  when 
the  snow  melted  these  seeds  would  sink  down  into  the 
moist  ground  and  immediately  sprout  and  grow;  and 
today,  there  are  many  thousands  more  acres  of  forest 
in  the  Black  Hills  reservations  than  there  were  wher 
the  law  was  enacted. 

Thus  far  matters  had  gone  very  nicely.    I  had  had 
a  hard  fight  to  get  the  policy  of  forest  reservation 
adopted  and  the  reservations  themselves  established 
Now  came  the  real  fight — to  hold  them  for  the  people 
In  the  amendment  which  was  added  to  the  Sundry 
Civil  Appropriation  Bill  I  inserted  a  provision  that  per 
mitted  any  settler,  who  was  embraced  within  a  Foresl 
Reservation,  to  exchange  his  land,  acre  by  acre,  foi 
other  government  land,   outside   of  the   reservation 
Such  a  provision  enabled  settlers  who  had  taken  lane 
before  the  establishment  of  reservations  to  take  up  a 
new  quarter  section  in  case  they  did  not  care  to  live 
under  the  reservation  regulations. 

The  Conference  Committee  of  the  two  houses  thai 
considered  the  Sundry  Civil  Bill  changed  the  wording 
i  of  this  section  in  such  a  way  that  the  land  grant  rail- 
i  roads,  which  had  received  in  all  nearly  two  hundred 
\  million  acres  of  land,  could  exchange  their  land,  if  em 
braced  within  a  forest  reservation,  for  the  very  best 
land  the  Government  had  remaining  on  the  public  do 
main  outside  of  the  reservation.  Allison  of  Iowa  was 
Chairman  on  the  part  of  the  Senate  and  Joe  Cannon  of 
Illinois,  Chairman  on  the  part  of  the  House.  The  Con 
ference  report  came  to  the  Senate  the  day  before  the 
end  of  the  session.  Therefore  it  was  not  printed,  but 
was  rushed  through  after  having  been  read  hurriedly 
by  the  clerk.  I  listened  to  the  reading,  but  I  did  not  no 
tice  this  change  of  wording  in  my  amendment,  and  so 
this  monstrous 'proposition  became  a  law. 

14 


Of  course,  the  conferees  knew  what  they  were  doing 
when  they  slipped  through  this  provision.  Under  it, 
the  Interior  Department  ruled  that  the  land  grant  rail 
roads  could  exchange  their  odd  sections,  embraced 
within  a  forest  reservation,  for  the  best  remaining 
acres  of  the  public  domain.  The  right  to  make  this 
exchange  was  worth  at  least  fifty  millions  of  dollars  to 
the  land  grant  railroads. 

I  did  not  discover  this  change,  made  by  the  Confer 
ence  Committee,  until  I  learned  that  the  Department  of 
the  Interior  was  permitting  the  railroads  to  make  these 
exchanges.  As  soon  as  I  discovered  this,  I  looked  up 
the  law  and  found  what  an  enormous  fraud  had  been 
practiced  through  the  cunning  of  Senator  Allison  of 
Iowa,  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Appropriations, 
and  Joe  Cannon,  Representative  from  Illinois,  a  banker 
and  lawyer,  and  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Appro 
priations  in  the  House.  Nearly  ten  years  had  dragged 
along,  from  the  time  I  began  the  fight  in  favor  of  forest 
reservations,  until  this  fraud  was  perpetuated  on  the 
American  people  by  these  two  representatives  of  busi 
ness. 

In  order  to  meet  the  situation  I  presented  an  amend 
ment  to  the  Sundry  Civil  Bill  on  May  31,  1900  (56th 
Congress,  1st  Session,  pages  6289  to  6298  of  the  Con 
gressional  Record),  which  reads  as  follows: 

"And  said  superintendents,  assistant  inspectors,  super 
visors  and  rangers  shall,  under  the  direction  of  the  Secretary 
of  the  Interior,  examine  all  lands  within  the  boundaries  of 
any  forest  reservation  that  belong  to  any  land-grant  railroad 
company,  and  have  not  heretofore  been  sold  in  good  faith 
for  a  valuable  consideration,  and  report  to  the  Secretary  the 
character  and  value  of  said  land,  and  pending  such  examina 
tion  and  report  none  of  said  lands  shall  be  exchanged  for 
other  lands  outside  of  said  reservation." 

It  may  be  well  to  state  at  this  point  that  the  Central 
and  Union  Pacific  Railroad  had  received  grants  by  an 
Act  of  Congress,  20  miles  wide,  from  the  Missouri 
River  on  the  west  boundary  of  the  State  of  Iowa, 
straight  across  the  continent  to  the  Pacific  Ocean, 

15 


through  the  length  of  the  States  of  Nebraska,  Wyo 
ming,  Utah,  Nevada,  and  California.  The  road  has  th  3 
odd  sections  on  a  strip  10  miles  wide  on  each  side  of 
the  tracks.  The  Northern  Pacific  Road  received  a 
grant  of  land  40  miles  in  width  from  some  point  in  the 
State  of  Minnesota,  clear  through  to  the  Pacific  Ocean. 
This  grant  extended  through  the  States  of  Minnesota, 
North  Dakota,  Montana,  Idaho  and  Washington,  and 
the  area  granted  included  the  odd  sections  throughout 
this  entire  region.  These  grants  embraced  the  good 
and  the  bad  land  alike.  Of  necessity  they  included  large 
areas  on  the  tops  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the  Cas 
cade  Range  and  a  great  deal  of  desert  land.  Whether 
by  design  or  not,  when  the  forest  reservations  wen; 
created,  they  embraced,  indiscriminately,  forested  and 
non-forested  districts.  By  ,some  chance  they  also  em 
braced  large  areas  of  desert  land.  These  deserts  were 
probably  embraced  intentionally  so  that  the  railroads 
could  exchange  their  odd  sections  of  worthless  deser ; 
land  for  lands  of  great  value  outside  the  reservation. 

After  I  had  presented  the  amendment  just  referred 
to,  I  made  a  statement  of  these  facts,  after  which  the 
following  significant  debate  took  place.  I  quote  it  in 
order  to  show  where  certain  Senators  lined  up  when  r-; 
came  to  an  issue  between  private  interest  and  the  pub 
lic  welfare.  (Cong.  Record,  May  31,  1900,  1st  session. 
56th  Congress,  p.  6288.) 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "Mr.  President,  the  amendment 
I  propose  is  a  provision  for  the  protection  and  admin 
istration  of  forest  reservation.  Three  years  ago  in  an 
appropriation  bill  we  provided  for  the  protection  and 
administration  of  these  reservations,  and  provided  that 
any  actual  and  bona-fide  settler  who  had  taken  a  claim 
within  a  forest  reservation  afterwards  created  could 
exchange  his  land  if  he  desired  to  do  so,  for  a  like  area 
of  the  public  domain.  It  was  the  intention  of  the  law 
to  allow  a  settler  whose  land  was  embraced  in  any  for 
est  reservation  to  exchange  his  land,  if  he  desired  to  do 
so,  for  lands  outside  of  the  reservations,  acre  for  acre. 

16 


"But  certain  words  were  inserted  under  which  the 
Department  has  decided  that  a  land-grant  railroad  can 
exchange  the  worthless  lands — lands  from  which  the 
timber  has  all  been  cut,  tops  of  mountains,  the  inacces 
sible  and  snow-capped  peaks  of  the  Rockies  and  Sierra 
Nevadas — for  the  best  land  the  Government  has,  acre 
for  acre.  So  they  have  swapped  lands  on  the  Cascade 
Range,  which  are  covered  forever  with  ice  and  snow, 
not  worth  a  tenth  of  a  cent  an  acre,  for  lands  worth 
from  six  to  ten  dollars  in  the  valleys  of  Washington 
and  Oregon  and  Idaho  and  Montana,  thus  depriving  the 
settlers  of  a  chance  to  secure  these  lands,  besides  en 
larging  the  grants  of  the  railroads  to  that  extent. 

"Now,  my  amendment  simply  provides  that  these 
lands  shall  be  inspected  and  examined  by  the  officers 
who  have  charge  of  the  reservations,  and  they  shall  re 
port  to  the  Secretary  the  character  of  the  lands  that 
belong  to  these  companies,  .so  that  in  the  future  we 
can  make  a  proper  adjustment — not  an  adjustment  by 
which  they  shall  receive  a  thousand  times  more  *than 
which  they  surrender — and  that  while  the  appraise 
ment  is  going  on  no  more  exchanges  shall  be  made. 
That  is  all  that  the  amendment  aims  to  accomplish, 
and  it  is  one  in  the  interest  of  the  public  beyond  all 
questions,  suspending  the  operation  of  a  law  which 
Congress  would  never  have  passed  if  it  had  been  dis 
cussed." 

Mr.  ALLISON :  "I  wish  to  say  that  this  amendment, 
as  it  appears  to  me,  is  general  legislation.  Certainly 
on  the  statement  made  by  the  Senator  from  South  Da 
kota,  it  changes  the  existing  law.  I  hope  he  will  not 
press  it  on  this  bill,  because  if  he  does  we  shall  be 
obliged  to  make  the  point  of  order  that  it  is  proposed 
general  legislation." 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "I  wish  to  say  that  I  do  not  be 
lieve  it  is  subject  to  the  point  of  order,  because  it  pre 
scribes  the  duties  of  these  officers  who  are  provided 
for  and  the  method  of  the  expenditure  of  the  appropri 
ation  now  in  the  bill.  Therefore,  I  do  not  believe  it  is 

17 


subject  to  the  point  of  order.  It  seems  to  me  if  it  is 
possible  to  insert  the  amendment  we  ought  to  do  it  and 
protect  the  Government  and  the  people  of  this  country 
against  the  execution  of  a  law  which  we  never  would 
have  passed  if  we  had  known  what  it  contained." 

Mr.  PETTIGREW :  "I  should  like  to  ask  the  chairman 
of  the  Committee  on  Appropriations  if  the  Secretary  of 
the  Interior  did  not  think  the  law  should  be  entirely  re 
pealed?" 

Mr.  ALLISON:   "The  Secretary  did." 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "Did  he  not  think  there  were 
great  frauds  being  practiced  under  it  ?" 

Mr.  ALLISON:  "I  have  no  doubt  that  is  all  true, 
but  that  is  a  subject  we  cannot  deal  with  now." 

(The  amendment  is  read  again.) 

Mr.  PENROSE:  "I  make  the  point  of  order  that 
this  is  general  legislation  and  contrary  to  the  rule." 

THE  PRESIDENT  (protempore) :  "The  Chair  has 
overruled  that  point  of  order.  It  has  already  been 
made.  The  question  is  on  agreeing  to  the  amendment." 

"The  amendment  was  agreed  to." 

Allison  of  Iowa,  Tom  Carter  of  Montana,  Chandler  of 
New  Hampshire,  Platt  of  Connecticut,  Aldrich  of  Rhode 
Island,  Penrose  of  Pennsylvania,  Walcott  of  Colorado, 
Hawley  of  Connecticut,  all  joined  in  the  fight  against 
me  to  see  that  the  land-grant  railroads  were  given  this 
vast  graft  at  the  expense  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  and  against  the  public  welfare.  This  is  but  a 
typical  case.  The  lawyers  in  the  Senate  always  lined 
up  against  the  people  of  the  United  States  and  in  favor 
of  the  railroads  and  the  other  predatory  interests  who 
are  the  real  government  of  the  United  States.  This 
Senate  debate  is  significant  because  it  shows  that  ras 
cality,  graft,  and  public  plunder  are  not  political  ques 
tions,  especially  in  so  far  as  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States  is  concerned. 

Observe  that  Allison  of  Iowa,  who  had  inserted  the 
amendment  making  possible  the  exchange  of  these  rail 
road  lands,  was  among  the  first  to  attack  my  amend- 

18 


ment  and  to  insist  that  it  should  not  go  into  the  bill. 
Observe  further  that  Tom  Carter,  Chairman  of  the  Re 
publican  National  Committee,  took  the  same  side.  It 
was  he  who  figured  in  the  scandalous  affair  during 
Harriman's  second  campaign  for  election,  at  which 
time  he  collected  from  Cramp,  the  shipbuilder,  $400,- 
000  and  told  Cramp  where  the  money  was  to  be  ex 
pended.  When  Tom  Carter  died  he  left  a  large  fortune. 
This  same  debate  was  participated  in  by  Bill  Chandler 
of  New  Hampshire,  Stewart  of  Nevada  and  finally  by 
Penrose  of  Pennsylvnia,  who  arose  and  for  the  sec 
ond  time  raised  the  point  of  order  against  my  amend 
ment.  Penrose  is  still  in  public  life  and  he  is  still  a 
faithful  servant  and  representative  of  the  great  preda 
tory  interests.  He  has  never  been  a  representative  of 
the  people  of  Pennyslvania  or  of  the  United  States. 

Despite  all  of  this  opposition  my  amendment  was 
adopted  without  a  roll-call.  The  reason  is  plain.  Neither 
these  men  nor  their  backers  desired  to  have  the  amend 
ment  become  a  law,  but  the  scandal  connected  with 
the  exchange  of  the  railroad  lands  had  gained  such 
publicity,  and  the  amendment  was  so  clearly  in  the 
public  interest  that  they  did  not  dare  to  kill  it  openly. 
Besides,  this  was  an  amendment  to  the  Sundry  Civil 
Bill  and  could  be  changed  in  conference,  and  the  con 
ference  report  forced  through  the  Senate  on  the  last 
day  of  the  session.  Allison  of  Iowa  was  called  "Pussy 
foot  Allison"  by  his  fellow  Senators  because  of  his  cun 
ning,  his  unscrupulous  rascality,  and  his  suavity,  and 
he  could  be  relied  upon  to  throw  out  of  the  bill  as  re 
ported  from  the  conference  committee  anything  that 
threatened  property  interests. 

So  the  bill  passed  the  Senate  and  went  to  conference. 

Allison  was  chairman  of  the  conference  on  the  part 
of  the  Senate  and  Joe  Cannon  on  the  part  of  the  House. 
The  conference  struck  out  my  amendment,  adopted  by 
the  Senate,  and  inserted  in  its  place  the  following: 

"That  *11  selections  of  Land  made  in  lieu  of  a  tract  cov 
ered  by  «m  unperfected  bona-fide  claim  or  by  a  patent  in- 

19 


eluded  within  a  public  forest  reservation  as  provided  in  the 
Act  of  June  4,  1897,  shall  be  confined  to  vacant  surveyed 
non-mineral  public  lands  which  are  subject  to  Homestead 
entry  not  exceeding  in  area  the  tract  covered  by  such  claim 
or  patent." 

The  conference  simply  struck  out  the  Senate  amend 
ment  and  inserted  the  original  clause  that  they  had 
placed  in  the  Sundry  Civil  Bill  of  1897  and  under  which 
the  fraudulent  exchange  had  taken  place.  The  change 
would  have  permitted  the  railroads  to  continue  the  ex 
change  of  their  worthless  lands  for  the  best  of  the 
government  land  and  thus  to  plunder  the  public 
domain. 

The  Conference  report  came  up  in  the  Senate  on  the 
day  before  adjournment.  I  was  watching  to  see  what 
had  been  done  with  my  amendment,  for  I  knew  Allison 
and  Cannon  were  but  paid  attorneys  of  the  railroads. 
When  the  amendment  was  read  (56th  Congress,  1st 
Session,  Congressional  Rec.,  p.  6690) : 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "I  should  like  to  understand  the 
paragraph  in  relation  to  non-mineral  lands.  As  I  un 
derstand  it,  as  read  from  the  Secretary's  desk,  it  per 
mits  a  continued  exchange  by  the  land-grant  railroad 
companies  of  the  worthless  lands  in  the  forest  reserva 
tions  for  the  best  land  the  Government  has.  Is  that 
correct ?" 

Mr.  ALLISON:  "I  do  not  so  understand  it.  The 
amendment  provides  for  the  exchange  of  surveyed 
lands  only,  and  not  of  unsurveyed  lands/' 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:   "But  it  allows  the  exchange?" 

Mr.  ALLISON :  'It  allows  the  exchange  of  surveyed 
lands." 

Mr.  PETTIGREW :  "Mr.  President,  this  conference 
report  provides  that  lands  where  a  railroad  company 
has  cut  off  all  the  timber  or  the  land  on  the  snow 
capped  peaks  of  the  mountains,  if  they  are  within  a 
forest  reservation,  can  be  exchanged  for  the  best  lands 
the  Government  owns,  acre  for  acre,  for  timber  lands. 
Hundreds  of  thousands  of  acres  have  already  been  ex 
changed,  and  yet,  although  the  Senate  placed  upon  this 

20 


bill  an  amendment  which  would  stop  that  practice,  the 
conference  committee  brings  in  a  report  to  continue 
it." 

I  wish  to  call  particular  attention  to  the  statements 
made  by  Allison  and  Wolcott,  that  only  surveyed  land 
could  be  exchanged.  This  statement  is  specifically  con 
tradicted  by  the  wording  of  their  own  amendment.  The 
falsity  of  the  statement  was  well  known  to  them,  yet 
they  made  it  for  the  purpose  of  deceiving  the  Senate. 

A  number  of  the  faithful  friends  of  the  plutocrats 
distinguished  themselves  signally  in  this  debate. 
Among  them  were  Senators  Wolcott  of  Colorado  and 
Hawley  of  Connecticut. 

Senator  Wolcott,  who  came  into  the  Senate  without 
a  dollar,  retired  from  that  body  with  a  large  fortune. 
He  was  always  eager  to  get  into  the  Record  as  having 
produced  laughter  on  the  part  of  the  Senators.  He 
considered  his  effort  in  the  interest  of  the  robbery  of 
the  public  domain  particularly  worthy  of  credit. 

Old  Hawley  of  Connecticut  was  always  a  champion 
of  the  interests.  As  long  as  I  know  him  he  was  men 
tally  incapacitated  from  comprehending  anything  ex 
cept  the  interests  of  the  big  business  groups  with 
which  he  always  acted.  He  had  an  intellect  like  the 
soil  of  Connecticut,  so  poor  by  nature  that  it  could  not 
be  exhausted  by  cultivation. 

The  amendment,  as  modified  by  the  Committee  on 
Conference  was  finally  agreed  to,  because  if  we  did  not 
agree  to  the  Senate  Civil  Sundry  Bill  with  this  amend 
ment  in  it,  an  extra  session  would  have  been  necessary. 
Thus  the  fraud  was  perpetuated,  and  the  continued 
grabbing  of  public  lands  made  possible. 

The  frauds  thus  deliberately  ratified  by  Congress 
after  all  the  facts  were  known  caused  me  to  wonder 
what  forces  were  in  control  of  the  Government,  and 
convinced  me  that  the  lawyers  who  composed  two- 
thirds  of  both  Houses  of  Congress  were  but  the  paid 
attorneys  of  the  exploiters  of  the  American  people,  and 
that  both  political  parties  were  but  the  tools  in  the 

21 


hands  of  big  business  that  were  used  to  plunder  the 
American  people.  The  frauds  begun  under  Cleveland, 
a  Democratic  President,  were  enlarged  and  completed 
under  McKinley,  a  Republican  President.  Millions  o:: 
acres  of  forest  reservation  were  established  in  Mon 
tana,  all  within  the  grant  of  the  Northern  Pacific  Rail 
road,  where  there  was  no  timber  or  forests,  only  a  little 
scrub  pine  that  never  was  and  never  will  be  of  any 
value  for  lumber  or  any  kind  of  forest  products,  and 
that  was  done  so  that  the  Northern  Pacific  Railroad 
could  exchange  its  odd  sections  of  worthless  desert  for 
scrip,  acre  for  acre,  and  this  scrip  sells  for  from  $8 
to  $10  per  acre,  and  can  be  located  on  any  land  the 
Government  owns  anywhere  within  our  broad  domain, 
and  the  desert  for  which  this  scrip  was  exchanged  was 
not  and  is  not  worth  ten  cents  per  acre. 

This  is  the  story  of  one  small  event  in  the  great 
drama  of  American  public  life  that  had  been  unfolding 
all  around  me.  I  have  told  it  in  detail  because  it  shows, 
as  well  as  anything  that  I  ever  learned,  the  fate  thai; 
lay  in  wait  for  any  measure  aimed  to  promote  the  pub 
lic  welfare.  When  I  began  this  fight  for  the  enactment, 
of  forest  legislation,  I  believed  that  we  were  enjoying 
a  system  of  popular  government  in  the  United  States. 
By  the  time  the  fight  was  ended,  I  understood  that  the-, 
country  was  being  run  by  plunderers  in  the  interest  of 
capital. 


22 


II.     THE  LAND  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

Powerful  interests  were  out  to  plunder  the  public 
domain.  I  had  felt  their  grip.  They  were  shrewdly 
advised.  I  had  faced  their  spokesman  in  the  Senate 
and  the  House.  They  were  sinister.  Many  a  man, 
under  my  eyes,  had  tried  to  thwart  them,  and  not  one 
such  had  remained  an  enemy  of  the  vested  interests 
and  at  the  same  time  continued  in  public  life.  Never 
theless,  I  went  straight  ahead,  trying  to  save  the  land 
for  the  people.  I  knew  how  enormously  rich  was  the 
public  domain;  I  had  an  idea  of  its  possibilities.  I 
wanted  to  have  it  used  in  the  future,  not  for  the  enrich 
ment  of  the  few,  but  for  the  well  being  of  the  many. 

In  order  to  protect  the  public  in  their  .sovereign 
rights  over  the  remainder  of  the  public  domain,  I 
worked  out  what  I  believed  was  a  feasible  plan  for 
keeping  the  public  domain  in  the  hands  of  the  public. 
After  I  had  secured  the  forest  legislation  and  the  pas 
sage  of  the  law  administering  forests,  I  introduced  the 
following  bill  in  the  Senate  on  March  22,  1898  (55th 
Congress,  2nd  Session) : 

A  BILL 

To  preserve  the  public  lands  for  the  people. 
Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Repre 
sentatives  of  the  United  States  of  America,  in  Congress 
assembled, 

That  the  public  lands  of  the  United  States,  except  reser 
vations,  be  and  they  are  hereby  donated  to  the  States  and 
Territories  in  which  they  may  be  located  on  the  sole  con 
dition  that  all  such  public  lands  shall  bo  held  in  perpetual 
ownership  by  such  States  and  Territories  to  be  used  by 
the  people  residing  therein  free  of  rent  under  such  regula 
tions  as  may  be  prescribed  by  the  legislatures  of  such  States 
and  Territories  each  for  itself. 

This  bill  had  three  purposes: 

1.  To  make  use  and  not  ownership  the  criterion  in 
the  distribution  of  nature's  gifts  to  individual  citizens. 

2.  To  keep  the  title  to  the  public  domain,  including 
agricultural  land,  mineral   land,   timber  land,   water- 

23 


power,  and  all  other  natural  gifts,  perpetually  in  the 
whole  people,  and  thus  to  prevent  any  greater  quanti 
ties  from  getting  into  the  grip  of  the  few. 

3.  To  localize  control  over  the  administration  of  the 
lands,  so  as  to  bring  the  problem  closer  to  the  people. 

Could  this  first  step  be  taken,  I  believed  that  we 
should  be  in  a  position  to  go  forward  with  a  general 
program  for  the  conservation  of  all  resources. 

The  bill  was  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Public 
Lands,  of  which  I  was  a  member,  and  to  the  members 
of  that  committee,  individually  and  collectively,  and  on 
the  floor  of  the  Senate,  I  presented  my  arguments.  In 
support  of  my  proposition  that  the  public  domain 
should  be  leased  but  never  sold,  I  stated  that  the  pub 
lic  domain  in  my  own  state  amounted  to  20,000,000 
acres  of  grazing  land.  Then  I  showed  that  if  these 
lands  were  conveyed  to  the  State  of  South  Dakota, 
with  the  privilege  of  leasing,  they  could  be  leased  to 
cattlemen  for  ten  cents  an  acre,  which  would  produce 
a  revenue  of  $2,000,000  a  year.  Then  I  showed  that 
this  money  derived  from  farm  leases  could  be  used  to 
build  great  reservoirs  on  the  heads  of  all  streams  and 
store  the  flood-water,  and  thus  irrigate  and  make 
productive  large  areas  of  this  semi-arid  land. 

In  my  own  state,  the  opportunities  for  irrigation  by 
means  of  artesian  wells  were  unusual.  I  pointed  out  to 
the  Senate  that  almost  anywhere  in  the  middle  half  of 
the  state  the  artesian  basin  could  be  tapped  at  depths 
varying  from  300  to  2,000  feet,  each  well  releasing  a 
flow  almost  marvelous  in  quantity.  Many  of  these 
wells  exhibit  a  pressure  strong  enough  to  drive  heavy 
machinery,  and  from  most  of  them  water  could  be 
elevated  30  or  40  feet  into  reservoirs  by  the  force  of 
the  head  behind  the  artesian  supply.  Nature  had  thus 
made  provision  for  irrigation  on  an  extended  scale  in 
South  Dakota,  and  all  that  was  needed  was  the  money 
with  which  to  provide  for  the  distribution  of  the  water. 

I  called  the  attention  of  the  Senate  to  the  fact  that 
Dakota  land  was  only  one  part  of  the  public  domain, 

24 


and  that  the  Dakota  problem  was  only  one  aspect  of 
the  whole  problem  of  conservation.  I  showed  them 
that  the  United  States  had  500,000,000  acres  of  arid 
and  semi-arid  land,  large  areas  of  which  could  be  irri 
gated  to  advantage,  either  through  stream  conserva 
tion  or  through  the  sinking  of  artesian  wells. 

Furthermore,  I  showed  that  the  Government, 
through  its  control  of  the  lakes  and  streams  of  the 
country,  had  an  opportunity  to  adopt  constructive  re 
lief  measures  designed  to  meet  the  recurring  floods 
and  droughts  in  the  lower  reaches  of  the  rivers.  Many 
of  the  streams  are  navigable.  Successful  navigation 
depends  on  the  maintenance  of  a  steady  flow  of  water. 
Many  were  used  for  the  generation  of  power.  Again, 
there  is  a  need  to  conserve  the  spring  surplus  to  cover 
the  needs  of  the  late  summer.  Each  spring  this  water, 
so  sorely  needed  later,  is  allowed  to  run  off  from  the 
land,  not  only  wasting  the  .supply  but,  through  floods, 
overflowing  the  banks  and  destroying  temporarily  or 
permanently  large  areas  of  fertile  and  cultivated  land. 

For  the  purpose  of  preventing  this  destruction,  par 
ticularly  along  the  Mississippi,  Congress  had  for  many 
years  appropriated  money  for  the  construction  of 
dykes  and  levees,  under  the  theory  that  such  work  was 
for  the  benefit  of  commerce.  Here  was  a  twofold  prob 
lem:  Millions  of  acres  of  arid  land,  on  the  one  hand, 
required  only  water  to  make  them  produce  splendid 
crops.  On  the  other  hand,  the  interests  of  commerce, 
of  power  development  and  of  the  dwellers  along  .some 
of  the  larger  rivers,  demanded  an  intelligent  regulation 
of  stream  flow. 

It  was  estimated  at  that  time  by  the  Government 
authorities  that  72,000,000  acres  of  land  could  be  thus 
reclaimed  and  made  to  produce  crops  sufficient  to  sup 
port  15,000,000  people.  The  benefit  that  commerce, 
industry  and  agriculture  would  derive  from  such  a  plan 
would  be  incalculable.  Therefore,  I  moved  an  appro 
priation  of  from  one  to  two  hundred  million  dollars  to 
begin  the  building  of  such  reservoirs  as  were  most  ur- 

25 


gently  needed  and  the  establishment  of  irrigation  proj 
ects  in  the  districts  that  would  yield  the  most  imme 
diate  results. 

I  further  showed  that  if  the  storm  water  was  all 
stored  in  these  reservoirs,  it  would  reduce  the  floods 
on  the  great  rivers — the  Missouri  and  the  Mississippi — 
and  obviate  the  necessity  of  building  embankments  to 
reclaim  the  lands  heretofore  flooded  by  these  great 
rivers.  Thus,  the  leasing  of  the  land  held  the  title  for 
all  the  people,  while  it  made  the  land  available  for  such 
as  were  able  to  utilize  it. 

For  my  part,  I  stated  that  I  would  prefer  to  have 
Congress  turn  over  its  arid  and  semi-arid  land,  lying 
within  its  boundaries,  to  the  State  of  South  Dakota, 
because  I  believed  the  problem  would  be  practically 
and  honestly  worked  out  to  the  great  advantage  of  the 
people  of  that  state.  The  same  thing  I  insisted  was 
true  of  Idaho,  of  Montana,  of  Wyoming,  of  Colorado, 
of  Nevada,  of  Utah,  New  Mexico,  Arizona,  Western 
Kansas,  Western  Nebraska  and  North  Dakota.  I  in 
sisted  that  the  nation  could  not  afford  longer  to  neglect 
this  great  opportunity  for  material  advancement, 
which  I  considered  of  fully  as  much  importance,  if  not 
of  more  importance,  to  the  future  greatness  and  pros 
perity  of  this  country  than  the  clearing  out  of  harbors 
along  the  small  streams  of  the  coast,  or  even  the  devel 
opment  of  the  great  harbors  themselves. 

The  arguments  fell  on  deaf  ears.  These  questions 
arose  during  the  days  following  the  Spanish  War  and 
preceding  the  conquest  of  the  Philippines.  We  had 
started  upon  a  career  of  conquest  rather  than  one 
of  internal  improvement.  The  Administration,  backed 
by  many  of  the  people,  believed  that  it  was  of  great 
benefit  to  this  country  that  we  should  annex  10,000,000 
people  in  the  Philippines.  Instead  of  spending  hun 
dreds  of  millions  in  conquering  the  Philippines,  it 
would  have  been  far  better  economy  and  better  busi 
ness  judgment  to  spend  it  in  reclaiming  the  arid  lands 
of  the  west. 

26 


At  the  time  that  I  presented  these  arguments  to  the 
Senate,  I  considered  them  weighty.  I  consider  them 
weighty  today.  I  believe  that  they  represented  the 
only  statesmanlike  approach  to  the  problem  of  resource 
conservation  and  that  they  suggested  a  line  of  action 
that  might  have  been  followed  to  the  advantage  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States.  Yet  I  was  unable  to  per 
suade  the  committee  to  report  the  bill  back  to  the  Sen 
ate  in  any  form. 

There  was  no  question  of  choosing  between  two  poli 
cies.  The  committee  had  no  policy  on  this  subject.  On 
the  subject  of  the  public  domain  they  had  only  one 
conclusion — that  the  only  way  to  make  a  state  or  terri 
tory  prosperous  was  to  get  the  title  of  the  public 
domain  put  of  the  Government  and  into  the  hands  of 
some  private  interest,  by  selling  it,  or  giving  it  away, 
or  doing  anything  to  get  rid  of  it. 

There  was  not  a  single  member  of  the  committee  on 
public  lands  that  was  in  favor  of  the  sovereign  owner 
ship  of  the  natural  resources.  They  wanted  to  deed 
not  only  the  land,  but  the  minerals  underneath  the 
land,  and  also  to  convey  the  water  power  so  that  these 
utilities,  of  no  value  except  that  which  the  community 
gave  them,  could  be  used  to  enrich  individuals  and  ex 
ploit  the  whole  population.  Everyone  was  opposed  to 
public  utilities  being  used  for  any  other  purposes  than 
that  of  enriching  individuals,  and  corporations  were 
being  rapidly  formed  for  the  purpose  of  more  thor 
oughly  performing  this  work  of  exploitation. 

Two-thirds  of  both  houses  were  lawyers,  and  they 
believed  that  the  rights  of  property,  no  matter  how 
acquired,  were  the  only  sacred  thing  in  connection  with 
humanity,  and  the  only  legitimate  subjects  for  the 
consideration  of  a  well-ordered  legislative  chamber  in 
an  intelligently  directed  state.  The  same  point  of  view 
has  prevailed  ever  .since,  and  therefore  no  policy  of  re 
claiming  and  utilizing  the  public  domain  for  the  benefit 
of  the  people  of  the  United  States  has  ever  been 
adopted.  Instead,  the  65th  Congress,  at  its  second 

27 


session,  passed  the  infamous  Shield's  Water  Power 
Bill. 

The  natural  resources  of  the  United  States,  a  hun 
dred  years  ago,  were  the  richest  possessed  by  any  mod 
ern  nation.  Like  the  air  and  the  sunlight,  they  existed 
in  almost  limitless  abundance.  But  the  "land-hog,"  in 
his  multitude  of  corporate  forms,  came  upon  the  scene 
and  today  the  timber  (except  170,000,000  of  acres  em 
braced  within  the  forest  reservations),  coal,  copper, 
iron  and  oil  that  once  belonged  to  the  American  people 
are  in  the  hands  of  a  few  very  rich  men  who,  with  their 
agents  and  attorneys  and  hangers-on,  administer  these 
free  natural  gifts  for  their  own  profit.  At  the  present 
moment,  the  one  great  resource  remaining  in  the  hands 
of  the  whole  people — the  "white  coal"  of  our  streams 
and  rivers — is  being  gobbled  up  by  the  public  utility 
corporations,  which  plan  to  charge  four  prices  for  a 
commodity  that  should  go  to  the  people  at  its  cost  of 
production. 

I  made  my  fight  in  the  land  because  it  was  so  basic 
and  so  important  from  the  point  of  view  of  economic 
strategy;  because  it  was  so  rich;  because,  by  holding 
and  using  it  for  their  common  advantage,  the  Ameri 
can  people  might  have  remained  free;  because  this 
same  land,  in  the  hands  of  a  small  and  unscrupulous 
ruling  caste,  will  not  only  enable  the  members  of  that 
caste  to  live  parasitically  upon  the  labor  of  the  remain 
der  of  the  community,  but  will  give  them  the  right  to 
decide  who  among  the  citizens  of  the  United  States 
shall  be  able  to  earn  a  living  and  who  shall  be  con 
demned  to  slow  starvation. 

I  lost  my  fight  on  the  land  because  every  branch  of 
the  government  machinery  was  manned  by  the  agents 
and  attorneys  of  the  interests  which  were  busy  grab 
bing  the  public  domain;  because,  through  their  control 
of  the  press,  they  kept  the  public  in  ignorance  of  the 
things  that  were  really  transpiring,  and  because  the 
people,  lulled  by  soft  words  such  as  "liberty"  and  "con 
stitutional  rights,"  were  busily  pursuing  their  daily 

28 


occupations,  secure  in  the  belief  that  the  Government 
would  protect  them.  So  I  lost  the  fight  because  those 
who  wanted  the  land  were  keen  and  powerful,  though 
few  in  number:  while  the  many,  from  whom  the  few 
stole  it,  were  basking  in  the  belief  that  they  were  citi 
zens  of  a  "free  country." 


29 


III.     BANKS  AND  BANKERS 

My  life  in  the  West  taught  me  the  power  of  the  land- 
grabbers.  My  experience  in  the  East  gave  me  an  in 
sight  into  the  power  of  the  banker.  The  land-grabber 
cornered  land.  The  banker  corners  money  and  credit. 
Both  are  able  through  their  monopolies  to  plunder  the 
producers  of  the  product  of  their  toil. 

We  learned,  through  our  experiences  with  the  East 
ern  bankers,  that  the  institution  which  can  issue  money 
and  extend  credit  holds  the  key  to  the  whole  business 
world.  The  banks,  under  the  present  laws,  can  do  both, 
and  this  fact  makes  them  the  dictators  of  business  life. 

Perhaps  a  little  story,  "The  Evolution  of  a  Banker," 
will  help  to  show  what  the  banker  does  to  his  fellow- 
men. 

In  1868  placer  gold  was  discovered  high  up  on  the 
sides  of  Mount  Shasta,  in  Northern  California.  The 
report  of  this  discovery  was  quickly  known  in  other 
placer  mining  camps  farther  ,south,  and  a  great  stam 
pede  occurred.  Five  or  six  hundred  miners,  at  one 
time,  went  to  Shasta,  staked  out  their  claims,  and  com 
menced  mining. 

Of  course  there  was  every  variety  of  the  genus 
homo,  from  the  saloon-keepers,  gamblers  and  highway 
men  to  miners,  speculators  and  prospectors — a  motley 
crowd.  Among  the  others  there  was  Robert  Waite,  an 
educated  fellow — a  sort  of  graduate — who  could  talk 
on  every  subject  from  the  Bible  to  Hoyle.  Then  there 
was  Silver  Jack  who,  when  he  was  not  mining;  was 
shooting  up  the  mining  camps  or  robbing  stage-coaches. 

When  they  arrived  at  Shasta,  all  of  the  members  of 
the  crowd,  with  one  exception,  staked  out  claims  and 
went  to  work.  The  diggings  were  good.  The  returns 
were  high. 

In  the  camp  lived  the  usual  hangers-on,  and  among 
them  there  was  one  man  who  among  all  of  his  fellows 
had  staked  out  no  claim.  Everybody  else  worked  at 
something.  He  never  worked.  The  others  were  equal 
and  democratic.  He  held  himself  aloof.  He  was 

30 


better  dressed  than  the  others;  he  was  never  about  in 
the  daytime,  but  in  the  early  evening  he  might  be  seen 
loitering  about  the  gambling  houses.  He  neither  swore 
nor  drank;  he  talked  but  little,  and  he  was  known  by 
everybody. 

As  the  weeks  went  by  he  opened  a  little  office  and 
began  to  lend  money  to  miners  who  had  a  good  claim 
and  who  were  dissipating  their  earnings,  at  four  per 
cent  a  month.  Time  passed,  and  he  opened  a  bank. 
Because  of  his  personal  habits  and  rather  agreeable 
appearance,  the  miners  deposited  their  savings  with 
him.  He  paid  the  depositors  ten  per  cent  a  year,  and 
loaned  the  money  to  other  miners,  who  were  willing  to 
give  their  claims  as  security,  for  four  per  cent  a  month. 
Under  these  conditions  the  bank  flourished  and  the 
banker  made  money. 

But  one  day  he  sold  the  bank  and  moved  to  San  Fran 
cisco,  and  there  opened  a  bank  on  a  large  scale,  and 
became  known  as  one  of  the  great  financiers  of  the 
Pacific  Coast.  A  few  years  afterward,  when  he  had 
become  famous,  he  removed  to  New  York  and  entered 
the  circle  of  the  great  financiers  of  the  world,  and 
became  widely  known  as  a  manipulator  of  moneys  and 
credits. 

At  a  banquet  which  he  gave  to  celebrate  the  thirtieth 
year  of  his  entry  into  the  banking  business,  he  grew 
enthused  with  wine,  and  in  his  speech  gave  a  sketch  of 
his  life  and  told  how  he  was  the  first  banker  in  Shasta 
in  '68.  Thereupon  the  miners  at  Shasta — those  of  the 
oldtimers  who  still  remained — held  a  meeting  to  dis 
cuss  the  question.  And  they  .said : 

"Why  this  man  is  not  the  man  who  started  the  first 
bank  in  Shasta ;  or,  if  he  is,  then  his  name  was  ,so-and- 
so,  and  we  remember  him  well." 

And  they  thereupon  appointed  a  committee  of  three 
to  make  an  investigation  and  ascertain  how  the  great 
banker  got  his  start,  and  the  committee  reported  that 
he  had  gone  with  the  stampede  to  Shasta,  had  taken  no 
claim  and  done  no  work  whatever;  but  that  he  slept 

31 


days  and  crawled  around  at  night  and  stole  from  each 
of  the  miners  so  little  of  the  day's  production  that  he 
did  not  mis,s  it.  The  committee  therefore  resolved  that 
he  had  changed  his  name  but  had  not  changed  the 
methods  of  doing  business  which  he  inaugurated  at 
Shasta  in  the  early  days.  He  was  still  stealing  so  little 
from  each  of  his  fellow  men  that  they  did  not  miss  it, 
and  had  thus  accumulated  an  enormous  fortune  and 
become  one  of  the  greatest  financiers  of  the  world. 

The  committee  further  concluded  that  no  person  or 
corporation  should  be  permitted  to  do  a  banking  busi 
ness  under  any  circumstances;  that  the  medium  of  ex 
change  was  the  life-blood  of  business  and  the  most 
important  of  all  public  utilities  and  that,  therefore,  it 
should  be  controlled  by  the  government  alone;  that 
every  post-office  should  be  a  savings  bank,  and  that  the 
government  should  establish  commercial  banks  every 
where  and  loan  money  to  the  people  at  just  what  it 
cost  to  do  the  business  above  wrhat  was  paid  the  depos 
itors  who  placed  their  surplus  in  the  Postal  Savings 
Banks,  so  that  if  the  Postal  Banks  paid  three  per  cent 
to  depositors,  the  Government  commercial  banks  would 
loan  this  money  to  the  people  of  the  locality  where  i ; 
was  deposited  for  not  to  exceed  three  and  a  half  per 
cent.  And  thus  this  great  engine  of  exploitation,  now 
operated  to  plunder  the  producers  of  wealth  in  the 
United  States,  would  be  turned  into  a  great  public 
benefaction  and  compel  the  bankers — parasites  on 
society — to  join  the  ranks  of  the  producing  classes. 

The  banking  business  is  a  parasite  business;  the 
banker  is  a  member  of  a  parasite  class;  yet  >so  com 
pletely  does  he  dominate  the  present  order  of  society 
that,  instead  of  being  punished  by  society  and  com 
pelled  to  take  a  position  and  earn  his  living  like  the 
masses  of  the  people,  through  the  pursuit  of  some  use 
ful  occupation,  the  banker  is  generously  rewarded; 
laws  are  passed  in  his  favor  and  he  is  encouraged  and 
assisted  in  his  efforts  to  pluck  his  fellow  men. 

For  years,  under  our  National  Bank  Act,  the  banker 

32 


could  subscribe  for  Government  bonds,  deposit  them 
in  the  Treasury,  and  have  the  Treasury  issue  to  him 
the  full  face  value  of  the  bonds  in  currency.  Thus  he 
retained  the  bonds  and  at  the  same  time  was  able  to 
.secure  an  equal  amount  of  money  which  he  could  use 
for  his  private  profit  in  the  banking  business.  The 
issue  of  money  was  thus  made  a  function  of  private 
banking  institutions.  They  could  not  only  lend  money; 
they  could  actually  create  it. 

During  my  visit  to  Japan,  I  received  some  interesting 
sidelights  on  our  banking  business  as  the  Japs  saw  it. 

Before  going  to  Japan  I  talked  with  the  Japanese 
Minister  in  Washington,  and  secured  from  him  all  of 
the  books  published  in  English  giving  the  history  and 
the  economic  development  of  Japan.  I  also  secured 
two  large  volumes  on  the  Japanese  banking  system 
written  by  Soyeda,  a  Jap  educated  in  England,  who  was 
then  the  Treasurer  of  Japan.  When  I  arrived  Soyeda 
met  me;  and  he  not  only  entertained  me  very  gra 
ciously,  but  talked  with  me  on  many  occasions. 

I  had  noticed  in  reading  his  book  on  Japanese  bank 
ing  that  Japan  had  at  first  adopted  the  American  Na 
tional  Banking  system,  but  had  abandoned  it  after  four 
years  of  trial.  I  asked  Soyeda  why  this  was. 

He  explained  that  four  years  had  convinced  them 
that  the  system  was  entirely  unworkable  because 
under  it  the  bankers  could  cause  an  expansion  of  the 
currency  whenever  it  was  profitable  for  the  bankers  to 
expand,  and  a  contraction  of  the  currency  whenever  it 
was  profitable  for  them  to  contract.  The  resulting 
panics  benefited  the  creditor  class  and  ruined  the  pro 
ducing  class:  that  in  fact  our  banking  system  worked 
in  Japan  just  as  it  worked  here — expanding  the  cur 
rency  to  gratify  the  greed  of  the  bankers  when  expan 
sion  was  to  their  profit,  and  contracting  it  in  the  inter 
est  of  the  bankers  whenever  it  was  to  their  advantage 
to  contract  the  volume  of  money. 

Japan  has  concluded  that  all  money  should  be  issued 
by  the  Government  and  its  volume  regulated  by  index 

33 


numbers  so  as  to  maintain  a  steady  range  of  prices ; 
that  is,  when  the  volume  of  money  was  unduly  ex 
panded,  it  would  cause  a  rise  in  all  prices  and  lead  to 
the  expansion  of  business  and  a  new  credit ;  that  when 
ever  the  money  was  unduly  contracted  in  volume,  it 
would  lead  to  a  decline  of  all  prices,  cause  panics,  and 
allow  the  creditors  to  take  possession  of  the  property 
of  the  producers. 

And  so  the  Japanese  established  a  central  bank  and 
branches,  and  the  nation  issued  its  own  currency.  In 
other  words,  the  Japs  discovered  a  great  economic  law, 
well  known  to  some  people  of  the  United  States,  but 
the  officials  of  Japan  had  the  honesty  and  character  to 
act  upon  this  law  instead  of  following  our  example  of 
leaving  the  issue  of  money  and  the  control  of  its  vol 
ume  in  the  hands  of  a  few  manipulators  to  be  used  as 
an  engine  for  exploiting  the  producing  population. 

This  Japanese  situation  was  interesting  to  me.  I 
had  left  the  Republican  party  in  1896  on  this  very  issue. 

The  Japs  with  their  keen  sense  of  values  and  their 
willingness  to  experiment  learned  in  four  years  what 
the  American  people  had  not  learned  in  forty — that  the 
banking  power  in  private  hands  makes  the  bankers  the 
autocrats  of  the  business  world. 

This  lesson  came  to  me  with  double  force.  When  I 
returned  to  America  I  found  Congress  debating  the  ex 
tension  of  National  Bank  charters.  Aldrich  of  course 
was  for  the  extended  charters.  In  the  Senate  (March 
2,  1901),  two  days  before  my  term  as  Senator  expired, 
he  said: 

"The  present  charters  of  the  National  Banks  expire 
from  time  to  time,  commencing  July  14,  1920.  The  law 
is  that  new  plates  shall  be  issued  to  all  banks  in  ex 
tending  their  charters.  The  preparation  of  these  plates 
will  take  nearly  a  year,  and  it  is  desirable  that  this  bill 
should  be  passed  at  this  session.  There  can  be  no 
objection  to  it.  It  is  simply  a  matter  of  form,  as  cer 
tainly  the  time  of  the  charters  will  be  extended  in  the 
next  Congress." 

34 


Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "Mr.  President,  I  do  not  believe 
that  the  charters  ever  ought  to  have  been  issued,  and 
I  am  certainly  opposed  to  their  being  renewed.  I  be 
lieve  the  system  is  a  pernicious  one  and  has  a  tendency 
to  breed  panics,  to  expand  the  currency  when  it  ought 
to  be  contracted,  and  to  contract  it  when  it  ought  to  be 
expanded.  Japan  adopted  this  system,  and  after  thor 
ough  investigation  repealed  the  lav/,  and  for  this  very 
reason. 

"Under  this  system,  which  is  a  branch  of  our  finan 
cial  system,  the  banks  can  produce  a  panic  whenever 
they  please,  and  wreck  the  property  of  this  country  or 
any  other  country  where  the  system  exists.  The  sub 
ject  ought  to  be  studied  and  thoroughly  investigated. 
These  charters  never  should  be  renewed,  and  a  remedy 
should  be  offered  by  which  we  could  have  an  elastic 
currency  rather  than  one  which  produces  too  much 
when  there  is  already  too  much  and  too  little  when 
there  is  already  too  little,  and  puts  the  control  of  the 
volume  of  the  money  of  the  country  in  the  hands  of  a 
combination  of  national  bankers.  I  therefore  object  to 
the  bill." 

The  bill  therefore  went  over  to  the  next  session. 
Then,  after  my  term  of  service  in  the  Senate  expired, 
the  bill  was  passed. 

The  experiences  of  the  American  banking  system 
during  the  great  war  confirmed  my  view  in  every  par 
ticular.  The  Federal  Reserve  Act,  passed  in  1913,  had 
made  possible  the  centralization  of  banking  power.  The 
war  did  the  work.  As  Roger  Babson  recently  stated 
the  matter: 

"In  1914  we  had  30,000  banks,  functioning  in  a  great 
degree  in  independence  of  one  another.  Then  came  the 
Federal  Reserve  Act,  and  gave  us  the  machinery  for 
consolidation,  and  the  emergency  of  five-years'  war  fur 
nished  the  hammer-blows  to  weld  the  structure  into 
one." 

Mr.  Alexander  is  right  about  the  strength  of  the 
American  banking  system.  Under  the  Federal  Reserve 

35 


Act  the  vast  power  of  the  thirty  thousand  American 
banks  is  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  a  little  club  with 
headquarters  in  Wall  Street.  This  club  holds  in  its 
hands  the  power  to  make  or  to  destroy  any  business 
man  in  the  United  States ;  the  power  to  make  or  wreck 
financial  institutions  and  inaugurate  panics ;  the  power 
to  issue  credit,  even  money.  The  bankers  at  the  center 
of  the  financial  web  are  endowed  with  the  power  of 
government. 

The  right  to  issue  money  is,  as  I  have  said,  funda 
mental.  This  right  is  exercised  by  the  New  York 
Bankers'  Club,  thinly  disguised  as  the  Federal  Reserve 
Board.  On  November  3,  1920,  the  amount  of  Federal 
Reserve  notes  outstanding  was  $3,588,713,000. 

What  was  the  basis  of  this  huge  issue  of  paper 
money?  Commercial  paper! 

The  member  banks  were  permitted  to  lend  money 
(or  credit)  to  their  patrons ;  to  take  commercial  paper 
in  exchange  for  their  loans ;  to  deposit  this  paper  under 
the  authority  of  the  Board,  and  to  issue  currency 
against  it.  This  currency  was  again  loaned  out,  the 
paper  redeposited,  etc.,  so  that  the  Federal  Reserve 
Bank  of  New  York  was  able  to  earn,  by  this  pyramid 
ing  of  credits,  over  200  per  cent  in  the  frugal  year  of 
1920,  in  a  market  where  the  rate  of  interest  never  ran 
over  8  per  cent  on  standard  securities. 

Through  their  authority  over  money  and  credit,  the 
bankers  thus  became  the  arbiters  of  the  business  des 
tiny  of  the  United  States.  No  one  elected  them.  No 
one  can  recall  them.  There  is  no  way  in  which  they 
can  be  made  the  object  of  public  approval  or  disap 
proval.  They  are  as  far  above  public  responsibility  as 
was  William  Hohenzollern  in  Germany  before  1914. 
Self-elected  dictators  of  American  life,  they  make  and 
unmake;  they  wreck  and  rule.  They  are  the  heart  of 
business  America — the  center  of  the  exploiting  .system 
that  sits  astride  the  necks  of  the  people. 

The  United  States  emerged  from  the  Great  War  with 
the  best  credit  of  any  of  the  larger  nations.  Its  wealth 

36 


was  the  greatest;  its  income  the  largest,  and  its  bank 
assets  and  resources  exceeded  those  of  any  other  coun 
try  ;  but  this  very  economic  position,  centered  as  it  is  in 
the  hands  of  bankers,  will  be  used  by  them  to  exploit 
the  peoples  of  Latin  America  and  Asia  as  they  have 
during  recent  years  exploited  the  people  of  the  United 
States.  Exploitation  is  the  profession  of  the  banker, 
and  those  in  charge  of  the  American  banking  institu 
tions  have  the  greatest  exploiting  opportunity  that  has 
ever  come  to  the  bankers  in  any  of  the  modern  nations. 


37 


IV.     MONEY 

My  experiences  with  the  world  of  affairs  have  con 
vinced  me  that  the  power  in  our  public  life  was  exer 
cised  through  the  bankers.  My  study  of  banking 
showed  me  that  the  grip  which  the  bankers  were  able 
to  maintain  on  the  economic  system  depended  largely 
upon  their  ability  to  control  money.  There  were  two 
ways  in  which  they  exercised  this  control.  One  was 
by  determining  who  should  issue  money.  The  other 
was  by  specifying  its  character.  The  bankers  of  the 
United  States  have  been  in  a  position  to  decide  both 
of  these  questions  in  their  own  interest. 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  says  that  the 
Congress  shall  have  power  to  coin  money,  to  regulate 
the  value  thereof  and  of  foreign  coins,  and  to  fix  the 
standard  of  weight  and  measures.  The  Constitution 
does  not  empower  Congress  to  delegate  the  right  to 
issue  money  to  any  person  or  combination  of  persons. 

Yet  the  Congress  has  always  delegated  the  right  to 
issue  money  to  the  banks.  The  power  thus  conferred 
by  Congress  upon  the  banks  to  issue  money  has  been 
used  by  the  bankers  to  exploit  and  plunder  the  people 
of  the  United  States. 

While  I  was  a  member  of  the  House  of  Representa 
tives  (1880)  I  had  become  acquainted  with  Peter 
Cooper  of  New  York.  The  renewal  of  the  National 
Bank  charters  was  under  discussion  in  the  House  at  the 
time  and  of  course  the  whole  question  of  currency  and 
of  our  economic  system  was  covered  in  the  debate.  One 
day  Peter  Cooper  of  New  York  placed  upon  our  desks 
a  pamphlet  dealing  with  the  money  question.  I  read 
this  pamphlet  with  great  interest,  because  Peter  Cooper 
was  called  a  "greenbacker"  and  was  supposed  to  be  in 
favor  of  what  they  called  "fiat"  money.  Again  and 
again  throughout  the  debate  his  name  had  been  men 
tioned  and  he  had  been  abused  by  the  speakers. 

The  foundation  theory  of  Peter  Cooper's  pamphlet 
was  that  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  applied  to 
money  just  as  it  applies  to  other  commodities,  so  that 

38 


an  abundance  of  money  would  be  registered  in  the  rise 
in  the  price  of  all  those  things  whose  value  is  measured 
in  terms  of  money.  In  other  words,  that  the  law  of 
supply  and  demand  (the  theory  that  quantity  affects 
price)  applies  to  money  as  well  as  to  corn,  oats,  and 
potatoes.  Therefore,  the  proof  of  a  too  great  abun 
dance  of  money  lay  in  the  universal  rise  of  prices ;  and, 
conversely,  the  proof  of  money  scarcity  was  the  univer 
sal  decline  in  prices.  Following  this  theory,  it  became 
evident  that  while  the  price  of  any  one  commodity 
would  rise  or  fall,  according  to  the  variations  in  the 
supply  of  and  the  demand  for  that  commodity,  a  gen 
eral  rise  or  fall  of  all  prices  indicated  that  money  was 
too  abundant  or  too  scarce.  Peter  Cooper  held  that 
money  was  redeemed  whenever  it  was  exchanged  by 
the  possessor  for  the  things  which  he  desired  more 
than  he  desired  the  money,  and  that  there  .should  be  no 
other  form  of  redemption.  In  other  words,  money 
should  be  issued  by  the  government  and  its  volume  so 
regulated  as  to  maintain  a  steady  range  of  prices. 

I  was  so  interested  in  this  pamphlet  that  I  went  to 
New  York,  made  the  personal  acquaintance  of  Peter 
Cooper,  and  talked  with  him  many  times  and  quite 
fully  upon  social  and  economic  questions.  These  talks, 
and  the  ideas  which  I  had  secured  from  my  reading, 
convinced  me  that  so  long  as  the  banks  controlled  the 
issue  of  money,  they  would  be  able  to  determine  the 
economic  life  of  the  United  States. 

Shortly  after  my  entrance  into  the  Senate,  the  whole 
question  was  dramatized  in  the  struggle  over  the  free 
coinage  of  silver 

The  big  business  interests  had  become  convinced 
that  if  the  United  States  was  to  take  her  position  as 
one  of  the  great  exploiting  nations  of  the  world  she 
must  follow  the  example  of  England  —  the  world's 
premier  empire — and  establish  a  gold  basis  for  the  cur 
rency.  It  was  in  opposition  to  this  policy  of  imperial 
ism  that  we  advocated  the  free  and  unlimited  coinage 
of  silver. 

39 


We  were  demanding  that,  in  this  respect,  the  United 
States  should  take  a  position  worthy  of  her  great  tra 
ditions  and  refuse  to  strike  hands  with  the  interna 
tional  plunderers  who  were  busy  with  their  work  of 
economic  aggression  in  all  parts  of  the  world  Tho.se 
of  us,  who  were  opposing  British  or  any  other  brand  of 
imperialism,  were,  with  equal  insistence,  demanding 
that  the  United  States  adopt  a  money  system  calcu 
lated  to  protect  the  borrower  as  against  the  lender,  and 
so  designed  as  to  take  out  of  the  hands  of  private  indi 
viduals  the  huge  power  that  money-lending  conferred. 

Many  of  the  leaders  of  American  public  life  were 
urging  that  the  United  States  must  wait  for  England 
to  move,  but  the  absurdity  of  such  a  proposition  was 
apparent  on  its  face.  Indeed,  her  leading  statesmen 
declared  that  fact  in  so  many  words.  Thus  Gladstone 
is  credited  with  the  following  statement  in  a  speech  to 
the  House  of  Commons.  (London  Times,  March  1, 
1893) : 

"I  suppose  there  is  not  a  year  which  passes  over  our 
heads  which  does  not  largely  add  to  the  mass  of  British 
investments  abroad.  I  am  almost  afraid  to  estimate 
the  total  amount  of  property  which  the  United  King 
dom  holds  beyond  the  limits  of  the  United  Kingdom, 
but  of  this  I  am  well  convinced,  that  it  is  not  to  be 
counted  by  tens  or  hundreds  of  millions.  One  thousand 
millions  ($5,000,000,000)  probably  would  be  an  ex 
tremely  low  and  inadequate  estimate.  Two  thousand 
millions  ($10,000,000)  or  fifteen  hundred  millions 
than  that,  is  very  likely  to  be  nearer  the  mark.  ('Hear ! 
Hear!')  I  think  under  these  circumstances  it  is  rather 
a  serious  matter  to  ask  this  country  to  consider 
whether  we  are  going  to  perform  this  supreme  act  of 
self-sacrifice.  I  have  a  profound  admiration  of  cosmo 
politan  principles.  I  can  go  a  great  length,  in  modera 
tion  (laughter),  in  recommending  their  recognition  and 
establishment,  but  if  there  are  these  two  thousand 
millions  ($10,000,000,000)  or  fifteen  hundred  millions 
($7,500,000,000  of  money  which  we  have  got  abroad,  it 

40 


is  a  very  serious  matter  as  between  this  country  and 
other  countries. 

"We  have  nothing  to  pay  them;  we  are  not  debtors 
at  all ;  we  should  get  no  comfort,  no  consolation,  out  of 
the  substitution  of  an  inferior  material,  of  a  cheaper 
money,  which  we  could  obtain  for  less  and  part  with 
for  more.  We  should  get  no  consolation,  but  the  con 
solation  throughout  the  world  would  be  great.  (Loud 
laughter.)  This  splendid  spirit  of  philanthropy,  which 
we  cannot  too  highly  praise — because  I  have  no  doubt 
all  this  is  foreseen — would  result  in  our  making  a  pres 
ent  of  fifty  or  a  hundred  millions  ($500,000,000)  to  the 
world.  It  would  be  thankfully  accepted,  but  I  think  the 
gratitude  for  your  benevolence  would  be  mixed  with 
very  grave  misgivings  as  to  your  wisdom.  I  have 
.shown  why  we  should  pause  and  consider  for  ourselves 
once,  twice,  and  thrice  before  departing  from  the  solid 
ground  on  which  you  have,  within  the  last  half  century, 
erected  a  commercial  fabric  unknown  in  the  whole  his 
tory  of  the  world — before  departing  from  the  solid 
ground  you  should  well  consult  and  well  consider  and 
take  no  step  except  such  as  you  can  well  justify  to  your 
own  understanding,  to  your  fellow  countryman,  and  to 
those  who  come  after  us."  (Cheers.) 

How  could  England  be  expected  to  abandon  an  eco 
nomic  system  that  was  yielding  hundreds  of  millions 
in  yearly  profits  to  her  bankers  and  investors  ? 

Again  and  again  this  issue  has  been  raised  at  inter 
national  conferences. 

The  first  conference  was  held  in  1867  at  the  invita 
tion  of  France,  and  met  at  Paris  on  June  17,  1867. 
Eighteen  of  the  principal  European  countries  and  the 
United  States  participated  They  voted  unanimously 
against  the  single  silver  standard,  and  every  nation 
participating  in  that  conference  voted  in  favor  of  the 
single  gold  standard  but  the  Netherlands,  and  they 
also  voted  to  establish  the  25-franc  gold  pieces  as  an 
international  coin. 

The  next  conference  met,  at  the  invitation  of  the 

41 


United  States,  at  Paris,  August  16,  1878.  Twelve  coun 
tries  were  represented.  Germany  refused  to  send  dele 
gates.  It  was  proposed  by  the  United  States,  first,  that 
it  is  not  to  be  desired  that  silver  shall  be  excluded  from 
free  coinage  in  Europe  and  the  United  States ;  second, 
that  the  use  of  both  gold  and  silver  as  unlimited  legal 
tender  may  be  safely  adopted  by  equalizing  them  at  a 
ratio  fixed  by  international  agreement. 

Then  the  convention  resolved — what?  Simply  this, 
and  nothing  more :  That  the  difference  of  opinion  that 
had  appeared  excluded  the  adoption  of  a  common  ratio 
between  the  two  metals,  and  then  adjourned. 

The  next,  or  third,  conference  was  called  by  France 
and  the  United  States,  and  was  held  in  1881,  nineteen 
countries  being  represented.  The  delegates  from  Swe 
den  said  that  they  had  better  reaffirm  the  declaration 
of  1878,  and  the  conference  reaffirmed  that  declaration 
and  adjourned  never  to  meet  again.  The  declaration 
of  1878  was  that  the  differences  of  opinion  which  had 
appeared  excluded  the  adoption  of  a  common  ratio  be 
tween  the  two  metals. 

The  next  conference  was  held  at  Brussels  in  1892. 
At  that  conference  the  United  States  proposed,  not  the 
free  and  unlimited  coinage  of  silver  at  any  ratio,  but 
simply  this:  The  United  States  had  at  first  sent  an 
invitation  to  Great  Britain,  asking  that  government 
to  join  us  in  a  convention  to  adopt  both  metals  at  a 
ratio  to  be  agreed  upon.  Great  Britain  refused  to  ac 
cept  the  invitation  to  the  conference  to  discuss  the 
question  of  agreeing  upon  a  ratio  for  the  coinage  of  the 
two  metals,  but,  when  we  changed  the  invitation  so  as 
to  provide  for  simply  meeting  and  discussing  the  ques 
tion  of  the  enlarged  use  of  silver,  Great  Britain  joined 
in  the  conference,  and  this  was  the  program  of  the 
United  States  in  the  conference  of  1892: 

That  in  the  opinion  of  this  conference  it  is 
desirable  that  some  measure  should  be  found 
for  increasing  the  use  of  silver  in  the  currency 
system  of  the  nations. 

42 


That  was  all.  No  greater  or  broader  resolution  would 
be  accepted  by  Great  Britain.  Neither  would  she  join 
us  in  a  conference  to  discuss  the  question  of  the  ratio. 
But  what  more?  Mr.  Wilson,  a  delegate  from  Great 
Britain,  immediately  said: 

"Her  Majesty's  Government  did  not  find  it 
possible  to  accept  an  invitation  conveyed  in 
terms  which  might  give  rise  to  a  misunder 
standing  by  implying  that  the  Government 
had  some  doubt  as  to  the  maintenance  of  the 
monetary  system  which  had  been  in  force  in 
Great  Britain  since  1816." 

Speaking  of  Sir  Charles  Freemantle  and  himself,  he 
said: 

"Our  faith  is  that  of  the  school  of  mono 
metallism  pure  and  simple.  We  do  not  admit 
that  any  other  than  the  simple  gold  standard 
would  be  applicable  to  our  country." 

Early  in  the  session  the  leading  delegate  from  Ger 
many  declared: 

"Germany,  being  satisfied  with  its  mone 
tary  system,  has  no  intention  of  modifying  its 
basis.  ...  In  view  of  the  satisfactory  monetary 
situation  of  the  Empire,  the  Imperial  Govern 
ment  has  prescribed  the  most  strict  reserve 
for  its  delegates,  who,  in  consequence,  cannot 
take  part  either  in  the  discussion  or  in  the 
vote  upon  the  resolution  presented  by  the 
delegates  of  the  United  States." 

Germany,  in  that  conference,  then  refused  to  dis 
cuss  or  vote  one  way  or  another  upon  a  proposition 
simply  for  the  enlarged  use  of  silver. 

Austria-Hungary,  although  represented  in  the  con 
ference,  instructed  their  delegate  to  take  no  part  in 
the  conference,  in  its  discussion  or  votes. 

The  delegate  from  the  Netherlands  declared: 

43 


'That  Holland  would  not  enter  into  a  bi 
metallic  union  without  the  full  and  complete 
participation  of  England,  is  a  part  of  the 
formal  instructions  furnished  us  by  our  gov 
ernment." 

France  made  the  same  declaration  practically;  in 
fact,  absolutely  the  same  declaration,  that  she  would 
not  participate  in  any  agreement  unless  England 
joined. 

The  convention  adjourned  to  meet  again  at  some  fu 
ture  time,  to  be  called  again,  some  time  within  the  then 
coming  year,  but  it  never  reassembled.  Afterwards, 
the  Congress  of  the  United  States  passed  a  bill  provid 
ing  for  nine  delegates  to  a  monetary  conference  when 
ever  we  could  find  anybody  who  would  confer  with  us ; 
and  we  were  unable  to  find  anyone  who  would  join  in 
a  conference  and  who  would  talk  with  us  about  this 
question,  and  the  law  lapsed  by  limitation  of  time. 

The  United  States  had  become  a  capitalist  nation — 
producing  surplus  wealth;  exporting  it  in  the  form  of 
goods  and  investment  funds,  living  on  the  interest  that 
these  investments  produced,  and  thus  saddling  upon 
the  backs  of  the  undeveloped  countries  of  the  world  the 
burden  of  taking  care  of  those  nations  which  were  rich 
enough  to  bind  the  poorer  peoples  to  them  by  the  lend 
ing  of  money. 

The  gold  standard  was  a  part  of  the  harness  that  the 
eastern  bankers  had  used  to  drive  the  western  farmers. 
The  fight  was  lost  by  the  free  silverites.  The  gold 
standard  won  the  day  and  with  that  victory  went  the 
triumph  of  protection,  the  establishment  of  a  trust- 
controlled  government,  the  degradation  of  labor,  and 
the  assurance  of  plutocracy's  power. 

The  Government  of  the  United  States  has  allowed 
interested  parties — creditors  and  bankers — to  manipu 
late  its  credit  and  volume  of  money  in  such  a  way  as 
to  produce  panics  and,  by  this  means,  to  plunder  those 
who  toil.  These  panics  have  come  at  stated  intervals. 

44 


M.  Juglar  (a  French  authority)  has  fully  analyzed  the 
three  phases  of  American  business  life  into  prosperity, 
panic  and  liquidation,  which  three  constitute  them 
selves  into  a  'business  cycle"  which  ordinarily  occupies 
about  ten  years.  These  ten  years  may  be  apportioned 
roughly  as  follows:  Prosperity,  five  to  seven  years; 
panics,  a  few  months  to  a  few  years ;  liquidation,  three 
or  four  years. 

Here  is  a  list,  with  dates,  of  all  the  panics  in  the 
United  States  during  the  last  century,  with  the  corre 
sponding  dates  for  France  and  England : 

France  England  United  States 

1804  1803  

1810  1810 

1813-14  1815  1814 

1818  1818  1818 

1825  1825  1826 

1830  1830  1829-31 

1837-39  1836-39  817-39 

1847  1847  1848 

1857  1857  1857 

1864  1864-66  1864 

1873  1873 

1882  1882  1884 

1889-90  1890-91  1890-91 

1894  1894  1893-94 

1897  1897  1897 

1903  1903  1903 

1907  1907  1907 

1913  1913  1913 

What  evidence  could  be  more  conclusive  of  the  utter 
failure  of  a  system  of  economic  life  than  these  succes 
sive  breakdowns  in  the  machinery  of  production  and 
exchange  ?  Yet  here  is  the  record  upon  which  the  pres 
ent  economic  system  must  stand  condemned  in  the  eyes 
of  every  thinking  human  being — the  record  of  disaster 
following  disaster,  with  neither  the  inclination  nor  the 
ability,  on  the  part  of  the  masters  of  business  life,  to 

45 


put  a  stop  to  these  successive  stoppages  of  economic 
activity. 

The  figures  just  cited  show  that,  during  the  past 
century,  panics  have  occurred  in  England  and  France 
at  the  same  time  that  they  occurred  in  the  United 
States.  These  three  countries  are  linked  together  by 
the  "gold  standard/'  and  their  governments  are  capital 
istic  governments — administered  by  the  banks  and 
creditor  classes  for  the  benefit,  not  of  the  people,  but 
for  the  benefit  of  the  rich.  Furthermore,  all  three 
countries  have  the  same,  or  about  the  same,  distribu 
tion  of  wealth.  In  each  of  these  countries  the  workers 
are  robbed  of  what  they  produce  by  the  same  process. 
The  creditor  classes,  through  their  privileges,  are  able 
to  manipulate  the  money  and  credit  through  panics,  so 
as  to  produce,  first,  a  rise  in  prices — by  expansion  of 
money  and  credit,  then  a  withdrawal  of  both,  followed 
by  a  sudden  drop  in  prices,  and  then  liquidation.  Or,  in 
other  words,  a  gathering  in  of  all  property  produced  by 
toil.  With  the  liquidation,  the  cycle  is  completed  and 
there  follows  a  new  cycle  of  ten  years  more,  of  pros 
perity,  panic  and  liquidation. 

I  have  had  an  excellent  opportunity  to  observe  the 
effect  of  these  successive  economic  disasters  upon  the 
producing  class.  I  went  to  the  Territory  of  Dakota  in 
1869  and  located  at  Sioux  Falls,  near  the  northwest 
corner  of  the  State  of  Iowa.  At  that  time,  all  of  the 
land  in  Dakota  was  owned  by  the  Government  and  was 
subject  to  entry  under  the  Homestead  and  Pre-emption 
laws,  and  could  only  be  secured  by  actual  settlers.  The 
result  of  the  panic  of  1873  caused  very  many  of  these 
homesteaders  to  commute  their  homesteads,  because 
the  price  of  farm  products  had  declined  below  the  cost 
of  production.  As  a  result,  the  movement  for  farm  ten 
ancy  was  begun.  The  United  States  publishes  no  fig 
ures  on  farm  tenure  previous  to  1880,  but  by  that  year 
the  percentage  of  tenant  farmers  in  the  rich  Middle 
West  was  for  Illinois,  23.7  per  cent;  Michigan,  31.4  per 

46 


cent;  Iowa,  23.8  per  cent;  Missouri,  27.3  per  cent;  Ne 
braska,  18  per  cent,  and  Kansas,  16.3  per  cent. 

The  next  great  disaster  to  the  producing  classes  cul 
minated  in  the  manufactured  panic  of  1893.  Grover 
Cleveland  had  been  elected  President  of  the  United 
States  upon  the  tariff  issue  in  1892,  and  when  he  took 
office  in  1893  he  called  a  meeting  of  Congress  for  the 
purpose  of  repealing  the  purchasing  clauses  of  the 
Sherman  law  of  1890,  which  provided  that  the  Treas 
urer  of  the  United  States  should  purchase  and  coin  not 
less  than  two  million  dollars'  worth  of  silver  and  not 
more  than  four  and  a  half  million  dollars'  worth  during 
each  month,  thus  adding  to  the  volume  of  circulating 
medium.  The  cutting-off  of  four  and  a  half  millions  of 
silver  by  the  repeal  of  the  Sherman  law  purchasing 
clauses,  with  its  consequent  decline  in  the  volume  of 
money,  proved  disastrous.  The  prices  of  all  farm  prod 
ucts  fell  sharply,  causing  the  ruin  of  the  agricultural 
classes  and  a  prolonged  panic  nearly  as  disastrous  as 
that  of  1873. 

The  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  who 
believed  in  bimetallism,  called  a  meeting  a  day  or  two 
before  Congress  was  to  assemble,  and  201  members  of 
the  House  declared  that  they  were  in  favor  of  both  gold 
and  silver  as  money,  because  there  was  not  gold  enough 
in  the  world  to  furnish  a  circulating  medium.  Two 
weeks  afterwards,  when  the  vote  was  taken  in  the 
House  of  Representatives  on  the  bill  to  completely  de 
mocratize  .silver  by  repealing  the  purchasing  clause  of 
the  Sherman  Act,  one  hundred  of  these  members  had 
been  bought  over,  through  patronage  and  money  and 
party  pressure,  to  the  interests  of  the  bankers,  and 
thus  the  bill  was  passed. 

The  panic  of  1893,  resulting  from  this  act,  which 
involved  a  contraction  of  the  volume  of  money  and  a 
reduction  in  prices,  again  drove  large  numbers  of 
people  from  the  land  and  reduced  agricultural  produc 
tion  below  a  remunerative  point.  As  a  result  of  this 
panic  and  the  panic  of  1873,  the  lands  in  Dakota,  which 

47 


had  all  been  owned  by  the  cultivators,  passed  into  the 
hands  of  the  mortgage  companies,  the  banks,  the  cred 
itors,  so  that  in  the  county  where  I  reside — Minnehaha 
County,  South  Dakota — 52  per  cent  of  the  farms  now 
are  cultivated  by  tenants.  Within  my  memory,  every 
acre  of  land  in  that  county  belonged  to  the  Govern 
ment.  Both  in  the  panic  of  1873  and  in  that  of  1893 
the  results  were  the  same.  The  owners  and  monopo 
lists  of  money  used  their  monopoly  power  to  squeeze 
the  small  producer  and  to  enrich  themselves. 

The  panic  of  1893  was  followed  by  the  discovery  in 
South  Africa  of  the  richest  gold  deposit  in  the  world 
and  within  the  next  few  years  these  mines  produced 
vast  sums  of  gold  to  be  used  as  money,  and  caused  a 
rise  in  the  price  of  everything  that  is  the  product  of 
human  toil. 

These  were  the  two  outstanding  economic  disasters 
that  occurred  during  my  connection  with  public  affairs. 
Both  arose  from  similar  causes  and  both  produced  like 
results — the  concentration  of  wealth  in  the  hands  of 
the  few ;  the  bankruptcy  of  the  small  business  man  and 
of  the  farmer;  unemployment,  distress  and  lowered 
wages  for  the  worker ;  crime,  suicide  and  murder. 

The  great  deposits  of  gold  which  had  been  poured 
into  the  currency  of  the  world  by  the  discoveries  in 
California  in  the  early  fifties  endangered  the  mortgage- 
holding  classes  of  all  the  capitalist  nations. 

Chevalier,  one  of  the  most  prominent  financiers  of 
Europe,  published  a  book  in  which  he  contended  that 
gold  must  be  demonetized;  that  the  continuous  use  of 
gold  as  money  would  work  universal  repudiation;  that 
it  was  dishonest  and  wicked  to  pay  debts  in  gold  under 
such  a  flood  as  was  coming  from  California  and  Austra 
lia.  His  voice  was  potent.  Germany  and  Holland — 
creditor  nations  —  closed  their  mints  to  gold  and 
adopted  the  silver  standard.  Maclaren  of  England, 
representing  the  bondholders  of  the  British  Empire, 
made  the  same  argument  in  the  early  fifties  against 
the  use  of  gold,  which  has  since  been  used  by  gold 

48 


standard  contractionists  for  more  than  sixty  years 
against  the  use  of  silver.  In  his  argument  in  favor  of 
the  bondholders,  Chevalier  said : 

"Our  neighbors  on  the  Continent  received 
the  announcement  of  these  remarkable  discov 
eries  in  a  different  spirit.  From  the  first  they 
have  considered  them  of  the  greatest  impor 
tance  and  have  expressed  great  solicitude  for 
the  maintenance  of  the  standard  value." 

Immediately  that  the  fact  of  a  great  increase  in  the 
production  of  gold  was  established,  the  Government  of 
Holland — "a  nation  justly  renowned,"  says  M.  Cheva 
lier,  "for  its  foresight  and  probity,"  discarded  gold 
from  its  currency.  "They  may,"  says  the  same  author, 
"have  been  rather  hasty  in  passing  this  law,  but  in  a 
matter  of  this  nature  it  is  better  to  be  in  advance  of 
events  than  to  let  them  pass  us." 

France  appointed  a  monetary  commission  which  con 
sidered  the  question  of  demonetizing  gold  for  several 
years  and,  finally,  reported  that  it  was  necessary  to 
demonetize  one  or  the  other  of  the  precious  metals — 
that  the  supply  was  violating  contracts  by  depreciating 
money  with  which  debts  were  paid.  Up  to  this  time 
the  creditor  classes  in  England,  France  and  the  United 
States  had  accepted  bimetallism.  The  rush  of  Califor 
nia  gold  endangered  their  monopoly.  The  discovery  of 
the  Comstock  lode  threatened  to  deluge  the  world  with 
silver,  and  Mr.  Lindeman,  Director  of  the  United  States 
Mint,  reported  in  London  that  there  were  fifteen  hun 
dred  millions  of  silver  in  sight  in  one  mine  on  the 
Comstock. 

When  gold  became  very  abundant  in  the  middle  of 
the  century,  the  creditor  classes  wanted  to  demonetize 
that  metal  in  order  to  make  money  scarce.  Then  came 
the  flood  of  silver,  and  they  feared  that  more  than  gold. 

John  Sherman  undertook  the  duty  of  carrying  into 
effect  in  the  United  States  the  demonetizing  of  silver. 
John  J.  Knox,  Comptroller  of  the  Currency,  a  crafty, 

49 


scheming,  money-making  individual,  got  up  a  codifica 
tion  of  the  mint  laws.  John  Sherman  introduced  the 
bill,  and  continually  talked  about  the  silver  dollar,  the 
inscriptions  on  it,  etc.  But  when  the  bill  became  a 
law  it  was  found  that  there  was  no  provision  for  a 
silver  dollar  in  the  bill,  the  trade  dollar  containing  120 
grains  taking  the  place  of  the  silver  dollar,  and  thus 
silver  was  demonetized,  and  it  was  made  easy  for  the 
creditor  classes  of  the  world  to  corner  gold  and  thus 
to  control  money. 

How  conscientiously  this  control  over  money  has 
been  exercised  is  indicated  by  the  actions  and  utter 
ances  of  the  bankers  themselves. 

The  American  Colonies  had  been  in  the  habit,  for  a 
number  of  years  before  the  Revolution,  of  issuing  what 
were  then  known  as  Colonial  Treasury  notes ;  the  notes 
were  made  receivable  by  the  several  provinces  for 
taxes.  These  Colonial  notes  being  adopted  by  all  the 
Colonies  led  to  an  unexpected  degree  of  prosperity,  .so 
great  that  when  Franklin  was  brought  before  the  Par 
liament  of  Great  Britain  and  questioned  as  to  the  cause 
of  the  wonderful  prosperity  growing  up  in  the  Colonies, 
he  plainly  stated  that  the  cause  was  the  convenience 
they  found  in  exchanging  their  various  forms  of  labor 
one  with  another  by  the  paper  money,  which  had  been 
adopted:  that  this  paper  money  was  not  only  used  in 
the  payment  of  taxes,  but  in  addition  it  had  been  de 
clared  legal  tender.  After  Franklin  explained  this  to 
the  British  Government  as  the  real  cause  of  pros 
perity,  they  immediately  passed  laws  forbidding  the 
payment  of  taxes  in  that  money. 

In  1862,  the  creditors  of  the  United  States,  the  Bank 
of  England,  sent  the  following  circular  to  every  bank 
in  New  York  and  New  England : 

"Slavery  is  likely  to  be  abolished  by  the  war 
power,  and  chattel  slavery  destroyed.  This,  I 
and  my  European  friends  are  in  favor  of,  for 
•slavery  is  but  the  owning  of  labor  and  carries 

50 


with  it  the  care  for  the  laborer,  while  the 
European  plan,  led  on  by  England,  is  for  capi 
tal  to  control  labor  by  controlling  the  wages. 
THIS  CAN  BE  DONE  BY  CONTROLLING 
THE  MONEY.  The  great  debt  that  capital 
ists  will  see  to  it  is  made  out  of  the  war  must 
be  used  as  a  means  to  control  the  volume  of 
money.  To  accomplish  this,  the  bonds  must  be 
used  as  a  banking  basis.  We  are  now  waiting 
for  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  make  the 
recommendation  to  Congress.  It  will  not  do  to 
allow  the  greenback,  as  it  is  called,  to  circulate 
as  money  any  length  of  time,  as  we  cannot 
control  that." 

In  1872,  the  ring  of  bankers  in  New  York  sent  the 
following  circular  to  every  bank  in  the  United  States : 

"Dear  Sir:  It  is  advisable  to  do  all  in  your 
power  to  sustain  .such  prominent  daily  and 
weekly  newspapers,  especially  the  agricultural 
and  religious  press,  as  will  oppose  the  issuing 
of  greenback  paper  money,  and  that  you  also 
withhold  patronage  or  favors  from  all  appli 
cants  who  are  not  willing  to  oppose  the  Gov 
ernment  issue  of  money.  Let  the  Government 
issue  the  coin  and  the  banks  issue  the  paper 
money  of  the  country,  for  then  we  can  better 
protect  each  other.  To  repeal  the  law  creat 
ing  National  Bank  notes,  or  to  restore  to  circu 
lation  the  Government  issue  of  money,  will  be 
to  provide  the  people  with  money,  and  will 
therefore  seriously  affect  your  individual 
profit  as  bankers  and  lenders.  See  your  Con 
gressman  at  once,  and  engage  him  to  support 
our  interests  that  we  may  control  legislation." 
The  panic  of  1893  was  a  bankers'  panic  and  in  their 
interest  and  the  ring  of  gambling  bankers  in  New  York 
sent  out  the  following  circular  to  every  bank  in  the 
United  States: 

51 


"Dear  Sir:  The  interests  of  national  bank 
ers  require  immediately  financial  legislation 
by  Congress.  Silver,  silver  certificates  and 
Treasury  notes  must  be  retired  and  National 
Bank  notes  upon  a  gold  basis  made  the  only 
money.  This  will  require  the  authorization  of 
from  $500,000,000  to  $1,000,000,000  of  new 
bonds  as  a  basis  of  circulation.  You  will  at 
once  retire  one-third  of  your  circulation  and 
call  in  one-half  of  your  loans.  Be  careful  to 
make  a  money  stringency  felt  among  your 
patrons,  especially  among  influential  busi 
ness  men.  Advocate  an  extra  session  of 
Congress  for  the  repeal  of  the  purchasing 
clause  of  the  Sherman  law,  and  act  with  the 
other  banks  of  your  city  in  securing  a  large 
petition  to  Congress  for  its  unconditional  re 
peal,  per  accompanying  form.  Use  personal 
influence  with  Congressmen  and  particularly 
let  your  wishes  be  known  to  your  Senators. 
The  future  life  of  National  Banks  as  fixed  and 
-safe  investments  depends  upon  immediate  ac 
tion,  as  there  is  an  increasing  sentiment  in 
favor  of  Government  legal  tender  notes  and 
silver  coinage.'* 

Mr.  Alexander  is  right  about  the  strength  of  the 
American  banking  system.  Under  the  Federal  Reserve 
Act  the  vast  power  of  the  thirty  thousand  American 
banks  is  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  a  little  club  with 
headquarters  in  Wall  Street.  This  club  holds  in  its 
hands  the  power  to  make  or  to  destroy  any  business 
man  in  the  United  States ;  the  power  to  make  or  wreck 
financial  institutions  and  inaugurate  panics ;  the  power 
to  issue  credit,  and  even  money.  The  bankers  at  the 
center  of  the  financial  web  are  endowed  with  the  power 
of  government. 

The  right  to  issue  money  is,  as  I  have  .said,  funda 
mental.  This  right  is  exercised  by  the  New  York 

52 


Bankers'  Club,  thinly  disguised  as  the  Federal  Reserve 
Board.  On  November  3,  1920,  the  amount  of  Federal 
Reserve  notes  outstanding  was  $3,568,713,000. 

What  was  the  basis  of  this  huge  issue  of  paper 
money?  Commercial  paper! 

The  member  banks  were  permitted  to  lend  money 
(or  credit)  to  their  patrons ;  to  take  commercial  paper  in 
exchange  for  their  loans ;  to  deposit  this  paper  under  the 
authority  of  the  Board  and  to  issue  currency  against 
it.  This  currency  was  again  loaned  out,  the  paper  re- 
deposited,  etc.,  so  that  the  Federal  Reserve  Bank  of 
New  York  was  able  to  earn,  by  this  pyramiding  of 
credits,  over  200  per  cent  in  the  frugal  year  of  1920,  in 
a  market  where  the  rate  of  interest  never  ran  over  8 
per  cent  on  standard  securities. 

Through  their  authority  over  money  and  credit,  the 
bankers  thus  became  the  arbiters  of  the  business  des 
tiny  of  the  United  States.  No  one  elected  them.  No 
one  can  recall  them.  There  is  no  way  in  which  they 
can  be  made  the  object  of  public  approval  or  disap 
proval.  They  are  as  far  above  public  responsibility  as 
was  William  Hohenzollern  in  Germany  before  1914. 
Self-elected  dictators  of  American  life,  they  make  and 
unmake;  they  wreck  and  rule.  They  are  the  heart  of 
business  America;  the  center  of  the  exploiting  system 
that  sits  astride  the  necks  of  the  people. 

The  United  States  emerged  from  the  Great  War  with 
the  best  credit  of  any  of  the  larger  nations.  Its  wealth 
was  the  greatest;  its  income  the  largest,  and  its  bank 
assets  and  resources  exceeded  those  of  any  other  coun 
try;  but  this  very  economic  position,  centered  as  it  is 
in  the  hands  of  bankers,  will  be  used  by  them  to  exploit 
the  peoples  of  Latin  America  and  Asia  as  they  have, 
during  recent  years,  exploited  the  people  of  the  United 
States.  Exploitation  is  the  profession  of  the  banker, 
and  those  in  charge  of  the  American  banking  institu 
tions  have  the  greatest  exploiting  opportunity  that  has 
ever  come  to  the  bankers  in  any  of  the  modern  nations. 

The  banks  are  again  issuing  circulars  and  in  April 

53 


or  May,  1920,  the  order  went  out  from  New  York,  from 
this  club  which  is  our  government,  to  all  the  Reserve 
Banks  throughout  the  United  States,  to  call  their  loans 
and  to  refuse  credit  on  all  the  products  of  human  toil 
not  controlled  by  the  combinations.  The  result  has 
been,  of  course,  the  reduction  in  the  price  of  everything 
that  is  produced  in  the  way  of  food  and  raw  material, 
and  to  a  very  low  point,  causing  the  ultimate  ruin  of 
all  those  who  cultivate  the  soil.  And  it  was  not  because 
there  was  not  plenty  of  money,  for  there  is  more  money 
.several  times  over  in  circulation  in  the  United  States 
than  ever  before  in  our  history.  We  have  secured  most 
of  the  gold  of  Europe,  and  I  know  of  my  own  knowledge 
positively  that  these  bankers  are  financing  the  bank 
rupt  nations  of  Europe.  For  instance,  they  loaned 
France  a  hundred  millions  a  few  months  ago,  and 
within  the  last  six  months  they  have  loaned  Norway 
twenty  millions.  And  so  another  panic  is  in  progress. 

The  banking  system  of  this  country  is  so  organized 
and  constituted  as  to  take  from  the  producer  the  result 
of  his  effort;  purposely  so  organized;  organized  with 
the  intention  of  controlling  the  volume  of  money ;  con 
tracting  and  expanding  credit  so  as  to  produce  a  panic, 
or  apparent  prosperity,  as  suits  the  purpose  of  its  or 
ganizers  and  managers. 

This  system  of  banking  was  the  invention  of  Lord 
Overstone,  with  the  assistance  of  the  acute  minds  of 
the  Rothschild  bankers  of  Europe,  and  was  so  con 
structed  as  to  enhance  the  importance  of  capital  and 
overshadow  the  importance  of  toil.  The  system  is  one 
based  upon  a  small  volume  of  legal  tender  money,  and 
the  limit  of  this  volume  they  would  make  as  small  as 
possible,  in  order  that  they  may  control  it  absolutely. 
Expansion  by  the  issue  of  credit,  not  legal  tender;  con 
traction  by  the  withdrawal  of  credit.  Expansion  that 
they  may  sell  the  property  of  the  producers,  which 
they  have  taken  in  with  the  last  contraction,  and  then 
contract  again  in  order  to  wreck  the  enterprising  and 
once  more  reap  the  harvest  of  their  efforts.  This  is  the 

54 


banking  system  of  Great  Britain,  and  the  banking  sys 
tem  of  every  gold  standard  country  in  the  world  today. 
It  is  the  banking  system  of  the  United  States.  This 
is  the  system  the  Republican  party  is  pledged  to 
strengthen  and  perpetuate.  There  is  no  hope  of  relief 
for  the  people  of  this  agricultural  country  in  any  pos 
sible  thing  the  Republican  party  can  or  will  do.  In 
1873,  fearing  that  the  volume  of  metallic  money  would 
become  too  large,  these  manipulators  of  panics,  these 
gatherers  of  the  products  of  other  people's  toil,  set 
about  to  secure  the  demonetization  of  silver  and  make 
all  their  contracts  payable  in  gold.  The  result  has 
been,  as  the  thinking  ones  of  every  nation  agree,  that 
in  every  gold  standard  country  on  the  globe,  agricul 
tural  prices  have  fallen  steadily  until  we  have  reached 
a  point  where  the  cost  of  production  is  denied  the  pro 
ducer.  The  present  Federal  Reserve  law  adopted  by 
the  United  States  is  but  a  culmination  of  all  the  infa 
mous  banking  systems  ever  invented  by  any  age  or 
people,  and  it  has  already  produced  the  practical  en 
slavement  of  the  people  of  the  United  States. 

Banking  and  the  issue  of  money  and  credit  are  the 
duties  of  the  sovereign  and  should  be  performed  by  the 
Government  for  service  and  not  for  profit,  and  for  the 
equal  good  of  the  whole  population.  Section  8,  Para 
graph  5  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  says : 

1  'Congress  shall  have  power  to  coin  money, 
regulate  the  value  thereof  and  of  foreign 
coins.  Congress  is  not  by  the  Constitution  au 
thorized  to  delegate  the  power  to  any  person 
or  corporation." 

The  functions  of  money  are  created  by  law  and  are 
legal  tender,  a  measure  of  value  and,  as  a  result,  a  me 
dium  of  exchange,  and  the  value  of  the  unit  of  money 
depends  upon  the  law  of  supply  and  demand,  and  the 
volume  of  money  should  be  regulated  so  as  to  maintain 
a  steady  range  of  prices,  and  this  can  be  done  by  the 
use  of  index  number.  No  substance  should  be  used  as 

55 


money  that  has  any  value  besides  its  money  value. 

And,  above  all,  no  metal  should  be  used  that  has  a 
commodity  value,  as  the  volume  of  money  is  liable  to 
be  affected  by  hoarding  and  by  being  shipped  away  to 
other  countries,  and  by  being  consumed  in  the  arts. 
In  fact,  money  should  never  be  international.  It  is  the 
most  important  tool  that  a  nation  can  possess  for  the 
transaction  of  its  business,  and  it  is  more  idiotic  to  ship 
it  out  of  the  country  to  pay  balances  than  it  would  be 
for  a  farmer  to  .ship  his  implements,  plows  and  reaper 
away  and  sell  them  for  seed ;  or  a  manufacturer  to  strip 
his  factory  of  its  machines  and  sell  them  for  raw 
material. 


56 


V.     THE  TARIFF 

Next,  perhaps,  to  the  money  system,  the  tariff  is  the 
handiest  weapon  that  the  American  business  interests 
have  at  their  disposal.  I  believe  in  a  tariff,  provided  it 
is  accompanied  by  a  free  and  untrammeled  competitive 
system  of  production.  The  purpose  of  such  a  tariff 
would  be  to  give  temporary  assistance  to  such  indus 
tries  as  are  necessary  to  the  sound  economic  life  of  a 
country.  Once  the  competitive  system  is  destroyed, 
however,  the  tariff  falls  to  the  ground,  becomes  merely 
an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  Government  for  the 
plundering  of  the  people  through  the  agency  of  their 
monopolistic  combinations.  Under  such  circumstances 
a  tariff  cannot  be  justified  unless  a  man  is  in  favor 
of  stealing. 

The  tariff  bills  that  I  .saw  enacted,  two  by  Republican 
Congresses  and  one  by  a  Democratic  Congress,  aimed  to 
distribute  favors  and  special  privileges  to  those  indus 
tries  that  were  strong  enough  to  demand  them  and  to 
enforce  their  demands.  The  Wilson  Bill,  passed  by  a 
Democratic  Congress,  provided  almost  as  much  protec 
tion  as  the  McKinley  and  Dingley  bills,  passed  by  the 
Republicans.  The  commodities  on  the  free  list  were 
changed,  but  the  principle  of  protection  was  accepted 
by  both  great  parties.  Both  were  serving  business  and 
business  demanded  protection. 

It  was  to  meet  this  situation  that  I  urged  (May  29, 
1894)  a  tariff  commission  with  power  to  examine  the 
books  of  every  protected  industry  in  order  to  ascertain 
the  cost  of  producing  these  goods  in  the  United  States ; 
to  compare  this  cost  with  the  cost  of  producing  them 
abroad,  and  thus  to  determine  a  fair  rate  of  protection 
for  the  home  industries.  I  urged  at  that  time  that  the 
tariff  commission  be  established  as  a  permanent  bureau 
in  order  to  make  protection  a  science.  The  business 
interests,  who  were  clamoring  for  protection,  did  not 
wish  it  to  be  a  science.  On  the  contrary,  they  looked 
upon  it  as  a  sinecure. 

57 


I  had  a  further  reason  for  believing  in  a  protective 
tariff  as  a  means  of  preventing  nations  which  produced 
similar  lines  of  goods  from  trading  with  one  another. 

Commerce  is  a  tax  on  industry.  The  act  of  produc 
ing  wealth  has  already  been  finished  when  commerce 
begins.  A  nation  should  therefore  trade  only  with  na 
tions  .so  situated  as  to  soil  and  climate  that  their  prod 
ucts  are  different,  and  are  naturally  necessary  to 
comfort  and  happiness.  The  United  States  should, 
therefore,  trade  chiefly,  not  with  Europe,  but  with  the 
countries  of  the  tropics,  and  our  industries  should  be  so 
adjusted  that  our  surplus  would  pay  for  those  things 
which  we  cannot  produce ;  and  this  would  be  our  condi 
tion  today  if  we  produced  everything  to  which  our  soil 
and  climate  are  adapted. 

We  should  insist  that  the  man  who  produces  the 
things  we  can  produce  shall  live  here,  if  he  wants  us  to 
buy  them ;  shall  help  support  our  Government ;  shall  be 
a  taxpayer  and  a  defender  of  our  institutions;  we 
should  have  the  art  and  the  artisan  as  well  as  the 
article,  and  thus  be  able  to  reproduce  it.  In  this  way, 
by  varied  industry  alone,  can  we  bring  out  all  that  is 
in  our  people,  every  trait  of  character,  every  variety  of 
talent,  and  can  produce  an  unmatched  race  of  men  and 
an  unparalleled  civilization. 

The  United  States  is  endowed  by  nature  with  the 
greatest  natural  resources  of  any  equal  area  of  the 
earth's  surface.  We  have  the  most  intelligent,  free, 
vigorous  and  active  people.  Our  wealth  and  prosperity 
depend  upon  the  amount  we  draw  from  nature's  inex 
haustible  storehouse  and  that,  in  turn,  depends  upon 
the  industry,  frugality  and  sobriety  of  the  living  gen 
eration. 

Little  is  left  over  from  one  age  to  another;  the 
nearer  we  can  bring  consumer  and  producer  together, 
the  smaller  the  friction  and  the  less  the  wear  and  tear 
and  the  expense  of  energy  in  making  the  exchange,  and 
the  greater  the  amount  of  production.  It  makes  no 
difference  what  price  we  pay  each  other  for  our  prod- 

58 


nets;  if  our  laws  are  just  there  will  be  an  equal  and 
fair  distribution  of  wealth,  and,  as  a  result,  universal 
happiness.  The  theory  of  free  trade  is  beautiful,  and 
if  all  the  people  on  earth  had  an  equal  chance,  were  all 
equally  intelligent,  moral  and  industrious,  and  lived  to 
gether  under  the  same  just  laws,  free  trade  might  be 
universally  enacted  with  profit  to  all. 

But  these  conditions  do  not  exist.  Therefore,  if  we 
enact  free  trade  our  great  natural  resources  and  our 
accumulated  wealth  would  be  dissipated  throughout  the 
earth,  resulting  in  a  slight  rise  in  the  scale  of  living 
and  civilization  of  all  mankind  and  a  great  fall  in  the 
.scale  of  living  and  civilization  of  our  own  people.  An 
old  illustration  is  apt.  If  you  connect  two  ponds  of 
water,  one  large  and  at  a  low  level,  the  other  small  and 
at  a  high  level,  they  will  both  reach  the  same  level — 
the  large  one  rising  a  little  and  the  small  one  falling 
very  much.  So  it  would  be  with  us  were  we  to  adopt  free 
trade ;  for  from  it  results  the  corollary  that  our  people 
must  do  whatever  they  can  do  and  grow  whatever  they 
can  produce  in  competition  with  all  the  rest  of  the 
world. 

What  can  we  economically  produce  in  competition 
with  the  starving  millions  of  Asia  or  the  paupers  of 
Europe?  England  is  trying  the  experiment;  with  what 
result  ?  Great  aggregations  of  wealth ;  numerous  mil 
lionaires  living  in  incredible  extravagance ;  but  a  million 
of  her  people  on  an  average  are  paupers  always — 
twenty-eight  out  of  each  one  thousand  of  her  popula 
tion.  One  person  out  of  every  twelve  needs  relief  to 
keep  from  starvation ;  one-half  of  the  people  of  England 
who  reach  the  age  of  sixty  are  or  have  been  paupers. 
Is  this  a  pleasant  picture — an  example  fit  to  follow? 
India,  with  the  oldest  civilization  on  the  globe,  has 
reached  a  little  worse  state  than  England. 

India  suffers  from  a  widespread  famine  every  four  or 
five  years;  eighty  out  of  every  one  hundred  of  her 
people  never  have  enough  to  eat;  sixteen  out  of  every 
one  hundred  have  barely  enough  to  eat;  four  out  of 

59 


every  one  hundred  live  in  idleness  and  luxury,  and 
these  are  the  castes  which  separate  the  people  so  that 
there  is  no  chance  to  rise  and  no  future  but  death. 

Free  trade  is  not  a  panacea,  and  not  even  a  probable 
remedy ;  and  while  a  tariff  will  enrich  us  as  a  nation  it 
will  not  cause  a  just  distribution  of  wealth  among  our 
own  people  unless  we  have  just  laws  which  confer 
equal  opportunities. 

Pursuant  to  this  theory,  I  presented  in  the  Senate 
on  June  4,  1897,  during  the  famous  debate  on  the  Ding- 
ley  Tariff,  an  argument  in  favor  of  a  duty  on  nickel 
(Volume  30,  page  1500)  to  illustrate  the  point  I  was 
making. 

"The  great  issues  that  are  before  the  people  of  the 
United  States  today  reach  further  than  a  controversy 
over  the  amount  of  tariff  on  any  item  in  the  pending 
bill.  They  are  the  great  questions  which  determine 
whether  we  will  march  on  in  the  course  of  freedom  and 
liberty  and  maintain  our  republic,  or  whether  we  will 
become  a  plutocracy — not  a  plutocracy  of  natural  per 
sons,  but  a  plutocracy  of  artificial  persons ;  whether  we 
will  continue  to  be  what  in  fact  we  are  today — a  gov 
ernment  of  the  corporations,  for  the  corporations  and 
by  the  corporations,  or  whether  we  will  go  back  to  what 
we  were  in  the  past — a  government  of,  for,  and  by  the 
people. 

"The  provision  of  the  Senate  Committee  in  regard 
to  nickel  is  equivalent  to  no  duty  at  all.  The  Senate 
Committee  has  provided  as  to  nickel  a  duty  of  six  cents 
per  pound,  and  then  has  inserted  in  brackets  "except 
nickel  matte."  Of  course,  under  that  provision,  all  of 
the  nickel  would  come  in,  for  nickel  matte  is  simply  the 
nickel  extracted  from  the  ore,  with  such  other  metals 
as  accompany  it  in  the  ore.  Then  they  can  be  sepa 
rated  in  this  country.  It  would  all  come  in  free,  nickel 
matte  being  free.  There  it  is  absolute  free  trade.  That 
provision  is  a  good  deal  like  a  good  many  other  pro 
visions  in  the  bill — obscure ;  not  intended  to  deceive,  but 
having  that  effect.  We  can  produce  all  the  nickel  used 

60 


in  this  country,  and  yet  what  is  the  history  of  this  in 
dustry?  There  are  nickel  mines  in  Missouri,  Pennsyl 
vania,  Arkansas,  Washington,  North  Carolina,  Colo 
rado,  New  Mexico,  California,  Oregon,  Nevada  and 
South  Dakota." 

Mr.  QUAY :  "The  mines  in  Pennsylvania  have  been 
abandoned." 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "The  Senator  from  Pennsylva 
nia  says  that  the  mines  in  Pennsylvania  have  been 
abandoned.  So  they  have  been  in  every  one  of  the 
states  I  have  named.  Pennsylvania  is  no  exception.  So 
would  the  Pennsylvania  mills  be  abandoned  if  you  had 
free  trade.  Open  your  doors  to  the  low-paid  labor  of 
Asia,  compensated  in  silver,  and  your  mills  will  be 
abandoned ;  the  doors  will  be  closed.  There  is  no  ques 
tion  about  it. 

"Let  us  see  what  is  the  history  of  nickel.  We  pro 
duced  in  the  United  States  in  1885,  275,000  pounds  of 
nickel:  in  1886,  214,000  pounds;  in  1887,  205,000 
pounds;  in  1889,  252,000  pounds;  in  1890,  223,000 
pounds;  in  1891,  118,000  pounds;  in  1892,  92,000 
pounds;  in  1893,  49,000  pounds;  in  1894,  9,000  pounds. 
I  have  not  the  figures  for  1896,  but  I  understand  the 
production  went  on  declining,  one  mine  after  another 
closing  throughout  the  country. 

"When  they  are  all  closed,  you  will  pay  twice  what 
you  now  have  to  pay  for  nickel.  WThat  is  the  occasion 
of  the  decline  in  the  industry  ?  A  deposit  of  nickel  was 
discovered  in  Canada  which  is  so  rich  in  nickel  and 
copper  that  the  copper  pays  the  cost  of  production. 
Therefore,  the  nickel  costs  nothing.  They  can  put  the 
price  at  any  figure  they  choose.  The  moment  they  have 
destroyed  the  industry  in  this  country  you  will  pay 
two  prices  for  your  nickel  again,  and  no  one  will  dare  to 
open  the  mines  of  the  United  States  in  view  of  this 
known  competition,  because  they  know  the  moment 
they  open  the  mines  and  invest  their  money  in  the  in 
dustry  the  Canadians  can  come  in  and  put  down  the 

61 


price  so  as  to  wreck  their  enterprise  and  make  them 
lose  their  capital. 

"What  we  want,  then,  is  a  duty  upon  nickel  suffi 
ciently  large  ,so  that  it  can  be  produced  in  this  country 
constantly  and  so  that  we  shall  not  be  in  the  hands  of 
a  foreign  producer,  and  so  that  with  our  high-pricec. 
labor  we  can  continue  the  production.  It  will  not  shut 
out  the  Canadian  nickel,  because  it  can  come  to  this 
market  anyway,  no  matter  what  the  duty  is.  Their 
nickel  costs  nothing.  We  have  mines  in  Oregon,  for 
instance,  the  ore  from  which  has  taken  the  premium, 
but  it  is  not  accompanied  with  copper  in  sufficient 
quantity  so  that  the  copper  will  pay  for  mining  both, 
Yet  men  are  ready  today  to  go  ahead,  but  not  under 
the  provisions  of  this  bill,  and  put  up  works  costing 
$150,000  to  mine  nickel  in  Oregon  and  Washington, 
provided  a  sufficient  duty  is  placed  upon  the  article  so 
that  they  can  mine  it  and  be  safe  from  absolute  ruin  by 
Canadian  competition.  I  hold  that  there  is  justice  ir 
their  claim. 

"We  can  mine  nickel  profitably  in  Dakota,  but  we; 
cannot  do  it — we  cannot  get  capital  to  do  it — if  we, 
know  that  at  our  door  is  a  deposit  which  can  put  the 
price  where  it  will  absolutely  destroy  all  profit  and  not 
even  permit  us  to  make  enough  to  pay  the  cost  of  pro 
duction.  I  hold  it  is  good  policy  to  place  a  duty  upon 
nickel  sufficient  so  that  we  can  keep  our  mines  open. 
Then  we  will  always  keep  the  price  at  a  reasonable 
figure.  Then,  if  the  duty  is  enough  so  that  it  will 
assure  the  working  of  the  American  mines,  we  will  not 
be  at  the  mercy  of  the  foreigners  to  double  the  price 
when  our  mines  are  closed.  I  hold  that  it  is  good,  patri 
otic  policy  again  to  open  the  mines  which  produced  al 
most  enough  nickel  to  .supply  our  wants  in  the  past, 
and  do  it  by  a  duty  of  fifteen  cents  a  pound  upon  nickel, 
and  not  admit  nickel  matte  free." 

My  argument  carried  no  weight.  The  tariff  was  not 
based  on  any  theory,  nor  did  it  appeal  to  science. 
Instead,  it  was  an  agglomeration  of  concessions  to  spe- 

62 


cial  interests.  When  this  became  clear  to  me,  I  adopted 
another  method  of  approach  to  the  problem.  These 
were  the  years  when  the  feeling  against  "trusts"  was 
running  high.  I,  therefore,  decided  to  relate  the  two 
problems  by  introducing  an  amendment  to  the  tariff 
bill  (55th  Cong.,  1st  Session,  p.  1893),  providing  that 
trust-controlled  products  should  be  admitted  free  of 
duty. 

In  the  end,  the  amendment  was  rejected,  but  it  occa 
sioned  a  lively  debate,  of  which  I  reproduce  a  part: 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "Up  to  the  last  national  conven 
tion  the  amendment  which  I  have  offered  was  in  strict 
accord  with  the  platform,  the  principles,  and  the  poli 
cies  of  the  Republican  party.  But  the  last  convention 
of  the  Republican  party  at  St.  Louis  left  that  plank 
out  of  their  platform.  Previous  to  that  time  the  Re 
publican  party  had  declared  for  bi-metallism.  Bi-metal 
lism  is  dangerous  to  trusts,  because  trusts  do  not  thrive 
on  rising  prices,  but  flourish  when  prices  decline.  There 
fore,  if  the  trusts  were  to  be  left  out,  and  bi-metallism 
left  out,  everything  would  be  in  absolute  harmony. 
The  platform  accorded  apparently  with  the  policies  of 
the  convention.  If  this  was  accidental,  if  this  provi 
sion  was  left  out  of  the  platform  by  an  oversight,  if 
it  was  not  left  out  because  the  trusts  had  gained  pos 
session  of  the  convention,  and  did  not  desire  to  abuse 
each  other,  then,  of  course,  that  will  be  illustrated  by 
the  vote  today. 

"In  the  platform  of  1888  the  Republican  party  de 
clared  : 

"We  declare  our  opposition  to  all  combina 
tions  of  capital,  organized  in  trusts  or  other 
wise,  to  control  arbitrarily  the  condition  of 
trade  among  our  citizens ;  and  we  recommend 
to  Congress  and  the  State  legislatures,  in  their 
respective  jurisdictions,  such  legislation  as 
will  prevent  the  execution  of  all  schemes  to 
oppress  the  people  by  undue  charges  on  their 

63 


supplies,  or  by  unjust  rates  for  the  trans 
portation  of  their  products  to  market.  We  ap 
prove  the  legislation  by  Congress  to  prevent 
alike  burdens  and  unfair  discriminations  be 
tween  the  states. 

"And  that  is  good  Republican  doctrine.  It  was  at 
that  time,  at  the  next  convention,  in  1892,  the  Repub 
lican  party  declared: 

"We  reaffirm  our  opposition,  declared  in  the 
Republican  platform  of  1888,  to  all  combina 
tions  of  capital  organized  in  trusts  or  other 
wise  to  control  arbitrarily  the  condition  of 
trade  among  our  citizens.  We  heartily  en 
dorse  the  action  already  taken  upon  this  sub 
ject  and  ask  for  such  further  legislation  as 
may  be  required  to  remedy  any  defects  in 
existing  laws  and  to  render  their  enforcement 
more  complete  and  effective. 

"Today  we  have  a  chance  to  carry  out  the  plank  in 
that  platform  and  enact  those  necessary  laws,  to  enact 
one  of  those  protective  provisions  to  carry  out  this  plat 
form  by  declaring  that  every  article  controlled  by  a 
trust  or  by  a  combination  to  limit  production  or  in 
crease  the  price  shall  be  subject  to  the  competition  of 
the  world,  unless  the  trust  will  dissolve.  The  punish 
ment  is,  therefore,  automatic.  The  trust  can  decide 
whether  it  will  go  out  of  existence  or  contest  the  rich 
American  market  with  the  manufacturers  of  other 
countries. 

"It  is  absolutely  and  strictly  in  accordance  with  the 
fundamental  principles  of  protection  as  laid  down  by 
the  Republican  party  since  it  came  into  existence,  for 
the  Republican  doctrine  was  that  by  protection  we  re 
duce  the  price  of  the  article  to  the  consumer;  that  by 
protection  we  build  up  competition  at  home;  that  com 
petition  lowers  the  price  and  does  justice  to  the  con 
sumer.  But,  Mr.  President,  when  you  allow  the  exis- 

64 


tence  of  a  trust  to  control  that  price  and  then  fix  a 
tariff  by  which  they  can  raise  the  price  to  the  limit  of 
the  tariff,  you  have  overturned  every  principle  of 
protection.  You  cannot  justify  this  bill  without  the 
amendment.  .  .  ." 

Mr.  ALLISON:  "I  asked  the  Senator  from  South 
Dakota,  when  he  introduced  the  amendment,  to  allow 
it  to  be  passed  over,  in  order  that  it  might  come  in  at 
its  proper  place  and  be  more  maturely  considered.  I 
am  strengthened  in  this  view  by  the  criticisms  that 
have  already  been  made  upon  the  amendment.  It  deals 
with  a  very  important  subject,  and  deals  with  it  in  a 
way  that  may  be  effective;  or,  instead  of  working  jus 
tice,  it  may  work  injustice.  It  goes  upon  the  assump 
tion  that  the  way  to  cure  this  evil  is  by  punishing  the 
people  who  are  engaged  in  trusts  by  placing  all  the 
articles  manufactured  in  the  country  of  a  like  character 
upon  the  free  list.  It  assumes  also  that  the  tariff  it 
self  is  the  author  of  the  trust. 

"I  remember  very  well,  as  a  good  many  Senators  on 
this  floor  remember,  that  we  had  a  long  debate  on  the 
question  of  dealing  with  trusts  and  the  remedies  some 
six  or  seven  years  ago.  The  venerable  Senator  from 
Ohio,  now  Secretary  of  State,  introduced  a  bill  upon 
that  subject.  It  was  referred,  I  think,  to  the  Commit 
tee  on  Agriculture  at  first,  and  reported  from  that  com 
mittee.  That  may  not  have  been  the  committee.  My 
recollection  is  not  very  distinct  upon  that  subject.  It 
was  reported  back  and  debated  here  for  a  week  or  two. 
Then  it  was  referred  to  the  Judiciary  Committee  and 
was  considered  for  some  weeks  by  that  committee,  and 
then  reported  back  here  and  debated,  and  finally  passed. 

"I  submit  to  the  Senate  that  a  matter  which  may  do 
injustice,  which  may  be  an  ineffectual  remedy,  which 
may  only  do  partially  what  is  sought  to  be  done,  should 
have  more  mature  consideration  than  can  be  given  to  it 
in  debate  here  from  day  to  day  upon  the  subject.  So  I 
appeal  again  to  the  Senator  from  South  Dakota  to  allow 
the  amendment  to  be  passed  over  for  the  time  being 

65 


until  we  have  finished  these  schedules,  and  then  rein- 
troduce  it  when  Senators  on  both  sides  of  the  chamber 
shall  have  an  opportunity  to  present  modifications  01 
amendments  to  it.  If  the  Senator  will  do  that  I  think 
it  will  facilitate  our  work  on  the  tariff  bill." 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "I  wish  to  make  my  reply  al 
some  length.  Mr.  President,  I  will  say  in  answer  to  tht 
question  of  the  Senator  from  Iowa  that  I  have  no  pride 
with  regard  to  the  form  of  this  amendment.  All  ] 
desire  is  to  accomplish  the  purpose  which  is  clearly 
indicated  by  the  amendment.  Neither  have  I  any  pride- 
in  its  being  my  amendment.  Let  us  discuss  and  point 
out  what  defects,  if  any,  there  are  in  the  amendment. 
I  think  the  subject  is  of  sufficient  importance  for  the 
Senate  to  consider  it  until  we  perfect  the  amendment. 
Where  it  is  attacked  in  good  faith,  I  believe  the  Senator 
attacking  it  should  offer  an  amendment  to  the  amend 
ment  which  will  cure  the  defect.  Of  course,  I  under 
stand  that  when  a  Senator  wishes  to  find  an  excuse  for 
going  against  the  amendment  he  can  find  it,  and  he  can 
find  it  in  technical  quibbles.  Capable  and  able  lawyers 
can  readily  raise  plenty  of  those,  .  .  .  We  have  asserted 
in  all  our  arguments  to  the  American  people  that  the 
tariff  produces  competition,  and  competition  reduces 
prices.  On  every  .stump  we  have  told  the  people  how 
an  imported  article,  Fuller's  Earth,  for  instance,  was 
worth  from  nineteen  to  thirty-two  dollars  a  ton,  but 
we  discovered  it  in  this  country  and  began  its  produc 
tion  under  a  very  small  duty,  when  the  price  fell  to 
twelve  dollars  a  ton  in  a  year  and  a  half.  It  was  the 
same  with  nails.  It  seems  to  me  that  if  we  wish  to 
perpetuate  the  principles  of  protection  and  defend  this 
bill,  we  must  carry  out  that  policy  which  we  have  so 
often  advocated  and  give  to  the  American  consumer  a 
competitive  market.  That  is  all  I  desire.  Cannot  we 
perfect  an  amendment,  then,  that  will  accomplish  that 
object? 

"But,  Mr  President,  I  have  my  doubts  about  some 
Senators  wanting  to  do  this.  I  think  it  has  been  devel- 

66 


oped  in  this  debate,  and  in  the  votes  that  have  been 
taken,  that  some  Senators  do  not  want  to  do  this.  They 
do  not  want  to  give  to  the  people  of  this  country  a  com 
petitive  market.  .  .  . 

"Mr.  President,  in  regard  to  this  amendment,  I  have 
this  to  say :  I  am  perfectly  willing  it  shall  go  over  until 
tomorrow,  so  that  we  may  discuss  and  perfect  it.  The 
American  people  are  against  the  trust.  They  are  not 
willing  to  allow  any  Senator  in  this  body  to  vote 
against  this  amendment  simply  because  its  phraseology 
does  not  suit  him.  Neither  are  Senators  going  to  crawl 
out  by  a  quibble  that  amendment  will  not  accomplish 
the  object  it  has  in  view.  It  is  the  duty  of  any  Senator 
who  objects  to  the  amendment  to  perfect  my  amend 
ment,  and  I  shall  be  glad  to  accept  such  an  amend 
ment." 

Later  in  the  same  debate  Senator  Platt  of  Connecti 
cut  had  a  discussion  over  the  duty  on  Fuller's  Earth. 
During  the  discussion,  Senator  Platt  accused  me  of 
not  being  a  protectionist  "except  in  spots."  To  this 
charge  I  replied  (Conor.  Record,  55th  Cong.,  1st  Sess., 
p.  2041,  June  26,  1897) : 

"Further,  Mr.  President,  I  do  not  know  that  I  care  to 
disclaim  or  admit  the  charge  as  to  whether  I  am  a  pro 
tectionist  or  not.  I  believe  that  the  nation  should  do 
its  own  work.  I  believe  that  a  varied  industry  is  neces- 
•sary  to  the  development  of  the  best  traits  of  character 
and  the  highest  civilization  among  any  people.  I  be 
lieve  that  it  is  the  nation's  duty  to  encourage  that 
varied  industry  which  wrill  enable  every  talent  among 
its  people  to  be  developed  to  its  fullest  extent. 

"Because  I  refused  to  vote  for  185  per  cent  duty  on 
woolen  goods,  the  Senator  from  Connecticut  stands  up 
here  to  say  that  I  am  a  protectionist  only  in  spots.  Be 
cause  I  refused  to  vote  for  700  per  cent  duty  on  the 
lower  grades  of  silk,  used  by  the  poor  people  of  this 
country,  the  Senator  from  Connecticut  says  I  am  a 
protectionist  only  in  spots. 

"Well,  if  to  be  a  protectionist  all  over  a  man  must 

67 


vote  for  700  per  cent  duty  on  the  cheaper  articles  and 
for  10  per  cent  on  the  higher-priced  articles  that  are 
used  by  the  rich,  I  am  only  a  protectionist  in  spots.  If 
to  be  a  protectionist  I  must  vote  for  an  extra  duty  on 
sugar  purely  and  absolutely  in  the  interest  of  the  most 
corrupt  and  demoralizing  trust  ever  organized  in  this 
country,  at  the  behest  and  dictation  of  a  political 
caucus,  then  I  am  a  protectionist  only  in  spots.  If  I 
must  vote  for  every  trust,  if  I  must  vote  for  every  com 
bination,  vote  special  privileges  to  the  few,  high  rates 
of  duty,  differential  duty,  in  order  that  they  may  be 
encouraged  in  their  raids  upon  the  people  of  this  coun 
try,  then,  Mr.  President,  I  am  not  a  protectionist  all 
over. 

"Is  the  Republican  party  a  protection  party?  Why, 
Mr.  President,  the  issue  of  protection  has  departed 
from  our  politics.  When  New  England  made  her  trade 
with  the  cotton  Democrats  of  the  South  for  the  purpose 
of  putting  a  duty  on  cotton,  thinking  to  break  up  the 
Solid  South,  she  abandoned  the  only  principle,  the  only 
issue,  that  gave  the  party  character,  and  it  has  left 
you  nothing  with  which  to  fight  the  next  campaign. 
All  the  Republican  party  stands  for  today,  inasmuch  as 
protection  is  no  longer  an  issue  and  the  South  is  broken 
up,  is  as  the  champion  of  the  trusts  and  the  gold  stand 
ard,  as  the  special  representative  of  the  classes  against 
the  masses." 

Thus  I  had  tried  three  lines  of  attack.  First,  I  had 
tried  to  have  a  tariff  commission  to  determine  tariff 
schedules  on  a  scientific  basis.  Second,  I  had  tried  to 
show  to  what  extent  particular  schedules  were  work 
ing  hardship.  Third,  I  had  attempted  to  rationalize 
the  tariff  by  denying  protection  to  trusts.  I  failed 
along  all  three  lines,  and  I  failed  because  the  tariff  was 
not  a  scientific  means  of  regulating  industry,  in  the 
interest  of  public  welfare,  but  a  cleverly  disguised 
method  used  by  certain  industrial  freebooters  to  in 
crease  their  profits. 

During  the  twelve  years  that  I  was  a  member  of  the 

68 


Senate  of  the  United  States  no  effort  was  ever  made  to 
pass  a  tariff  bill  in  the  interests  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States ;  they  were  entirely  left  out  of  consider 
ation.  Two-thirds  of  the  Senate  were  always  lawyers 
and  they  were  simply  interested  in  passing  a  tariff  bill 
that  would  enrich  their  clients  and  at  the  same  time 
humbug  the  American  people  into  the  belief  that  it 
was  being  done  in  their  interest. 

Allison  of  Iowa  was  from  an  agricultural  state,  and 
you  would  have  supposed  that  he  would  have  looked 
after  the  interests  of  the  people  of  Iowa ;  but  he  never 
did.  He  was  in  the  Senate  as  the  representative  of  the 
transportation,  the  financial  and  industrial  combina 
tions.  Platt  of  Connecticut,  another  lawyer,  was  in  the 
same  category.  The  committees  were  all  packed  in  the 
interests  of  business,  and  a  majority  of  each  committee 
that  had  charge  of  the  tariff  or  any  other  branch  of 
legislation  were  men  (attorneys,  as  a  rule)  who  were 
there  to  look  after  the  exploiters  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States.  I  also  state  without  hesitation  or  quali 
fication  that  no  trust  legislation  was  ever  considered 
by  any  committee  in  the  Senate  except  with  a  view  to 
allowing  the  trusts  to  prosper  and  flourish  and,  at  the 
.same  time,  so  word  the  law  as  to  humbug  and  deceive 
the  American  people.  That  the  leaders  were  in  the 
employ  of  the  great  industrial  combinations  and  that 
they  exercised  considerable  cunning  in  their  practices 
to  bring  about  this  result.  The  tariff  and  the  trusts 
always  received  the  fostering  care  of  the  lawyers  of 
the  Senate  and  House  and  were  never  framed  or  in 
tended  to  be  framed  to  protect  the  interests  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States. 


69 


VI.     THE  TRUSTS 

I  was  in  the  Senate  when  the  Sherman  Anti-Trust 
Law  was  passed  in  1890.  I  was  there  representing  a 
state  that  was  rabidly  opposed  to  trusts  in  theory  and 
trusts  in  practice.  For  twelve  years  I  worked  and  voted 
to  drive  the  trusts  out  of  American  politics,  and  yet,  as 
if  in  ironical  comment  on  the  futility  of  my  efforts,  the 
Steel  Trust — greatest  of  them  all — was  organized  dur 
ing  my  last  year  in  the  Senate  (1901). 

The  people  of  South  Dakota  lived  on  the  land  and 
still  believed  in  the  necessity  for  competition.  They 
had  grown  up  under  the  conviction  that  our  civilization 
is  founded  upon  the  theory  of  evolution,  upon  the  doc 
trine  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  upon  the  law  of 
competition.  The  result  of  this  theory  in  the  past  was 
feudalism,  or  the  supremacy  of  brute  strength  and 
physical  courage,  and  its  resulting  paternalism.  But 
feudalism,  by  the  operation  of  the  law  of  competition 
and  evolution,  destroyed  itself  by  the  subjugation  of 
the  weaker  by  the  stronger  and  the  creation  of  mon 
archical  forms  of  government  in  its  place. 

My  history  had  taught  me  these  facts.  Coming 
from  a  state  that  was  still  under  the  control  of  farm 
ers,  small  shop-keepers  and  professional  men,  I  believed 
that  this  theory  of  competitive  life  held  out  the  sound 
est  answer  to  the  many  public  questions  then  confront 
ing  the  country.  Despite  all  my  efforts,  I  witnessed 
the  abandonment  of  the  old  theory  and  the  adoption  of 
a  new  practice — the  practice  of  trust  organization. 
Competition,  under  this  theory,  ceased  to  be  the  life  of 
trade,  and  became  an  irksome  form  of  activity  that 
should  be  dispensed  with  at  the  earliest  convenient 
moment. 

We,  the  American  people,  have  abandoned  the  doc 
trine  we  often  repeated  and  so  much  believed,  that 
competition  is  the  life  of  trade,  and  have  adopted  the 
doctrine  that  competition  destroys  trade.  The  practice 
of  this  new  economic  theory  calls  for  the  organization 

70 


of  trusts  and  combinations  to  restrict  production,  to 
maintain  and  increase  prices,  until  practically  all  of  the 
important  articles  manufactured  in  the  country  are 
produced  by  combinations  and  trusts.  Thus  the  funda 
mental  principle  of  the  early  American  civilization  is 
overturned,  and  those  who  do  not  combine  —  the 
farmer,'  the  individual  proprietor,  the  professional  man 
and  the  toilers  on  the  land — are  at  the  mercy  of  those 
who  do  combine. 

The  rapid  growth  of  trusts  in  the  United  States 
began  with  demonetization  of  silver,  and  the  formation 
of  trusts  was  the  means  adopted  by  some  of  the  most 
far-seeing  and  .shrewdest  men,  having  control  and  di 
rection  of  capital  invested  in  manufacturing  and  trans 
portation,  to  avert  losses  to  themselves  by  reason  of 
falling  prices,  which  lead  to  overproduction  and  under 
consumption.  They  realized  that  the  first  effect  of  a 
decline  in  prices  is  to  stimulate  production,  because  the 
producers  hope  to  make  up  the  difference  in  price  by 
larger  sales  at  less  expense.  They  also  foresaw  what 
the  average  producer  fails  to  see,  that  when  the  decline 
of  prices  is  general  the  purchasing  power  is  less  in  the 
whole  community,  and  therefore  an  increased  produc 
tion  can  find  no  market  at  any  price,  so  that  there  ex 
ists  at  the  same  time  an  overproduction  of  things 
which  are  most  needed  and  an  underconsumption  of 
these  very  things,  because  of  the  inability  to  purchase 
them. 

The  organizers  of  the  trusts  did  not  go  into  the 
causes  of  falling  prices.  In  most  cases  they  knew  noth 
ing  about  the  natural  effects  of  throwing  the  entire 
burden  upon  one  metal  constituting  the  basis  of  the 
money  of  the  world,  which  had  formerly  rested  upon 
both  gold  and  silver.  So  they  made  the  common  error 
of  mistaking  effect  for  cause,  and  attributed  the  decline 
in  prices  to  overproduction.  Therefore  they  combined 
and  formed  trusts  to  restrict  production  and  keep  up 
prices.  The  effect  of  the  successful  operations  of  trusts 
is  to  compel  higher  prices  to  be  paid  for  the  finished 

71 


product,  or  for  transportation,  while  they  do  not  check 
the  decline  in  the  value  of  raw  material  nor  in  the  rates 
of  wages,  nor  do  their  managers  wish  to  do  so. 

I  do  not  desire  to  be  understood  as  charging  that  the 
trusts  are  able  to  withstand  the  general  fall  of  prices. 
The  ability  of  the  consumer  to  pay  fixes  the  limit  be 
yond  which  prices  cannot  be  forced,  and  that  is  the 
only  limit  upon  the  powers  of  a  trust  to  regulate  prices 
when  the  combination  of  domestic  producers  is  ,so  per 
fect  as  to  defy  competition  at  home  and  the  tariff  duty 
upon  the  imported  article  excludes  the  competition  in 
our  markets  of  foreign  producers. 

Many  people,  during  the  nineties,  insisted  that  there 
were  no  trusts.  Today  there  are  persons  who  believe 
that  the  trusts  have  been  "busted"  by  our  bluff  and 
•scholarly  chief  executives.  The  trusts  were  growing 
into  positions  of  power  in  the  late  nineties;  they  re 
ceived  an  immense  impetus  through  the  economic  and 
political  events  surrounding  the  Spanish-American 
War.  The  first  fifteen  years  of  the  new  century  has 
witnessed  a  rounding  out  of  the  trusts  and  an  expan 
sion  into,  wider  fields  of  activity. 

My  particular  attention  was  attracted  to  the  Sugar 
Trust  because  I  had  come  into  such  intimate  contact 
with  its  workings  in  connection  with  my  fight  over  the 
annexation  of  Hawaii. 

Prior  to  August,  1887,  there  was  life  and  free  com 
petition  in  all  branches  of  the  sugar  trade.  The  pro 
ducers  of  raw  sugars  all  over  the  world  sought  in  the 
ports  of  the  United  States  a  market  in  which  numerous 
strong  buyers  were  always  ready  to  take  their  offer 
ings  at  a  price  varying  with  the  supply  and  demand. 
There  was  the  same  healthy  competition  among  the 
sugar  refiners  as  among  the  producers  and  importers 
of  raw  sugar.  This  was  manifested  by  constant  efforts 
to  improve  the  product  and  to  lessei  tie  cost  of  refining 
by  the  introduction  of  better  processes. 

The  distribution  of  the  raw  and  refined  sugar  to  the 
consumer  through  the  usual  trade  channels  from  the 

72 


importers  and  the  refiner  by  way  of  the  jobber,  the 
wholesale  grocer,  and  the  retail  grocer  to  the  family 
was  also  untrammeled.  Each  bought  where  he  could' 
purchase  to  the  best  advantage  and  sold  upon  terms 
agreed  upon  between  him  and  the  buyer,  and  not  dic 
tated  by  any  third  party. 

But  in  1887  the  enormous  profits  amassed  by  the 
Standard  Oil  Trust  suggested  to  a  few  of  the  leading 
refiners  the  possibility  of  controlling  the  sugar  trade 
in  the  same  way.  It  was  then  claimed  for  the  first 
time  that  the  individual  refineries  through  competition 
were  unable  to  make  sufficient  money  to  continue  in 
business. 

This  seems  a  little  strange  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
most  of  the  refiners  who  had  the  misfortune  to  die  or 
had  retired  from  business  before  that  time  are  known 
to  have  left  or  still  possess  large  fortunes.  Those  mil- 
Ions,  however,  no  doubt  seemed  insignificant  in  com 
parison  to  the  potentialities  of  wealth  offered  by  the 
adoption  of  trust  methods. 

So  the  sugar  trust  was  formed  in  the  fall  of  1887  by 
a  combination  between  twenty-one  corporations,  some 
of  which  were  formed  out  of  existing  unincorporated 
firms  for  the  express  purpose  of  entering  the  trust, 
which  was  called  the  Sugar  Refineries  Company. 

One  of  the  first  acts  of  the  new  trust  was  to  close  up 
the  North  River  Sugar  Refinery.  This  led  to  an  action 
by  the  attorney-general  of  New  York  in  behalf  of  the 
people  for  the  forfeiture  of  the  charter  of  the  company, 
at  the  end  of  which  the  Court  of  Appeals  declared  the 
trust  illegal,  and  the  charter  of  the  North  River  Com 
pany  was  forfeited.  The  trust  was  thereby  compelled 
to  abandon  its  organization  and  reorganize  under  the 
laws  of  New  Jersey  as  the  American  Sugar  Refining 
Company,  a  single  corporation,  in  which  were  combined 
all  the  parties  to  the  original  trust. 

While  my  amendment  to  the  tariff  act,  providing 
that  trust-made  products  should  be  admitted  free  of 
duty,  was  under  consideration  in  the  Senate,  Senator 

73 


Sewell  of  New  Jersey  entered  the  debate  with  a  re 
markable  question.  Said  he  (55th  Cong.,  1st  Session, 
p.  1740) : 

Mr.  SEWELL:  "How  does  the  Senator  know  that 
there  is  a  sugar  trust?  The  American  Sugar  Refining 
Company  is  a  corporation  of  my  state,  with  a  very 
large  capital  and  doing  a  large  business.  It  is  not  in  a 
trust  with  anybody,  as  I  understand  it.  They  surren 
dered  everything  of  that  kind  three  or  four  years  ago." 

Mr.  PETTIGREW :  "Mr.  President,  that  is  a  strange 
question  and  a  remarkable  proposition.  The  American 
Sugar  Refining  Company  was  formerly  a  combination 
of  twenty-one  refineries.  They  closed  the  North  River 
Refinery.  The  courts  of  New  York  declared  that  com 
bination  to  be  a  trust.  Then  these  same  people  formed 
a  corporation  under  the  laws  of  New  Jersey. 

"I  notice  that  almost  every  rotten  corporation  in  this 
country  is  organized  under  the  laws  of  New  Jersey.  I 
do  not  knew  whether  the  laws  need  fixing  or  not ;  but 
something  is  the  matter.  At  any  rate,  all  such  corpo 
rations  go  there  whenever  they  want  to  get  up  a  combi 
nation  to  get  away  with  somebody  and  to  be  sure  that 
they  will  not  be  troubled.  They  formed  a  combination 
there  of  all  these  refineries,  and  then  they  proceeded 
to  close  refineries,  raised  the  price  to  the  limit  of  the 
tariff,  and  took  from  the  people  of  this  country  untold 
millions.  Under  this  amendment  any  combination  or 
corporation  for  this  purpose,  to  control  production  and 
increase  the  price,  is  a  trust,  and  therefore  the  Ameri 
can  Sugar  Refining  Company  is  a  trust,  and  the  courts 
can  so  decide. 

"What  is  more,  Mr.  President,  the  president  of  the 
American  Sugar  Refining  Company  testified  that  they 
controlled  the  price  of  sugar — I  read  his  testimony 
yesterday — that  they  fixed  the  price  for  their  custom 
ers,  and  that  they  fixed  it  for  everybody  else.  I  also 
showed  yesterday  that  the  American  Sugar  Refining 
Company  controlled  every  refinery  in  this  country  but 
four,  and  then  I  showed  by  the  testimony  of  a  St.  Louis 

74 


grocer  that  they  controlled  those  four ;  for  when  this  St. 
Louis  grocer  refused  to  sign  a  contract  by  which  he  was 
to  bind  himself  to  buy  no  other  than  sugar  made  by  the 
trust  at  a  price  fixed  by  them — when  he  refused  to  sign 
that  contract  to  take  their  refined  sugar  on  commission 
— they  refused  to  sell  any  sugar  at  all;  and  when  he 
applied  to  the  four  independent  refineries,  he  could  not 
buy  a  pound  of  sugar  from  them.  So  that,  after  all, 
the  combination  embraces  not  only  all  the  refineries  in 
the  trust,  but  all  the  others." 

After  we  passed  the  McKinley  law,  which  was  par 
ticularly  favorable  to  the  trust,  Mr.  Havemeyer  was 
called  before  the  Senatorial  investigating  committee, 
and  he  gave  this  testimony : 

Mr.  HAVEMEYER:  "We  undertake  to  control  the 
price  of  refined  sugar  in  the  United  States.  That  must 
be  distinctly  understood." 

Senator  ALLEN :  "And  the  price  of  refined  sugar  in 
the  United  States  is  higher  to  the  American  people  in 
consequence  of  the  existence  of  the  American  Sugar 
Refining  Company  than  it  would  be  if  the  different 
companies  in  your  organization  were  distinct  and  inde 
pendent  companies?" 

Mr.  HAVEMEYER :    "For  a  short  time  it  is. 

Senator  ALLEN :  "And  what  difference  does  it  make 
for  the  consumers  in  this  country  in  a  year  in  your 
judgment?" 

Mr.  HAVEMEYER:  "It  has  been  in  three  years 
past  three-eighths  of  a  cent  more  on  every  pound  they 
ate,  as  against  doing  business  at  a  loss." 

In  other  words,  the  fact  that  they  were  in  a  trust 
and  that  they  controlled  the  price,  according  to  his  own 
statement,  added  three-eighths  of  a  cent  to  every 
pound  of  sugar  consumed  in  this  country. 

Senator  ALLEN:  "And  that  would  be  about  how 
much  in  round  numbers  ?" 

Mr.  HAVEMEYER :  "It  is  a  large  sum  in  the  aggre 
gate." 

Senator  ALLEN:    "How  many  millions?" 

75 


Mr.  HAVEMEYER:  "I  should  say  it  was  close  to 
$25,000,000  in  three  years." 

How  did  I  know  there  is  a  trust  in  sugar?  It  has 
been  told  to  everybody,  until  there  is  not  a  boy  six 
years  old  who  can  read  and  write  who  does  not  know 
there  is  a  sugar  trust. 

Senator  ALLEN :  "And  you  intend  to  keep  your  hold 
upon  the  American  people  as  long  as  you  can?" 

Mr.  HAVEMEYER:  "As  long  as  the  McKinley  bill 
is  there  we  will  exact  that  profit." 

"We  will  exact  that  profit.  Is  there  competition  ?  Is 
there  any  show  for  competition?  They  say  they  fix 
the  price  and  that  they  are  going  to  continue  to  do  it 
so  long  as  you  keep  the  duty  on;  and  yet  the  Senator 
wants  to  know  how  I  know  there  is  a  sugar  trust.  It 
would  be  astonishing  if  I  did  not  know  it." 

That  discussion  took  place  at  a  time  (1897)  when  it 
was  still  possible  to  feign  surprise  at  the  mention  of 
"trusts"  in  the  United  States.  After  1901,  when  the 
Steel  Trust  was  organized,  the  matter  was  decided  for 
good.  After  that  everybody  recognized  the  fact  that 
there  were  trusts ;  that  these  trusts  were  managed  by 
corporations;  that  the  object  of  their  management  and 
manipulation  was  to  increase  the  profits  and  the  power 
in  the  hands  of  the  business  interests. 

During  the  twelve  years  that  I  was  a  member  of  the 
United  States  Senate  Congress  did  nothing  effective  for 
the  control  of  the  trusts.  The  Anti-Trust  Act  was 
passed  in  1890,  but  no  effective  means  were  ever  pro 
vided  for  its  enforcement.  The  act  of  1890  was  passed 
by  outraged  farmers  as  a  protest  against  the  exploita 
tion  under  which  they  were  suffering.  By  the  time  I 
introduced  my  amendment  to  the  Tariff  Act  in  1897,  it 
was  taken  for  granted  that  combinations  of  capital 
should  exist,  and  that  these  combinations  should  get 
what  they  could. 

A  careful  review  of  all  legislation  from  the  passage 
of  the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law  in  1890  to  the  present 
time  convinces  me  that  it  was  the  consistent  policy  of 

76 


Congress  to  protect  rather  than  to  destroy  the  trusts 
and  to  build  up  and  foster  the  trusts  and  thus  create 
these  great  combinations  to  exploit  the  American 
people.  Before  I  left  the  Senate  they  were  talking 
about  them  as  "benevolent  institutions"  and  today  they 
regard  them  as  one  of  the  bulwarks  of  our  civilization. 

Whatever  possibilities  there  may  have  been  in  the 
act  of  1890  disappeared  with  the  "rule  of  reason"  intro 
duced  by  the  Supreme  Court,  Not  "restraint  of  trade" 
but  "unreasonable  restraint  of  trade"  was  the  meaning 
of  those  who  framed  this  law.  Finally,  in  1920,  came 
the  decision  in  favor  of  the  continuance  of  the  Steel 
Trust  on  the  ground  that  public  policy  demanded  it. 
I  know  of  no  better  comment  on  the  situation  than  the 
interview  given  out  by  Judge  Gary  after  the  Court's 
decision  was  announced: 

"The  decision  as  made  will  immeasurably  add  to  the 
general  feeling  of  confidence  in  the  value  of  property 
and  in  the  opportunities  of  business  enterprise."  (Bos 
ton  "Globe,"  March  2,  1920.) 

Judge  Gary  summarizes  the  entire  policy  of  the  Fed 
eral  Government  with  regard  to  combinations  and 
trusts.  They  were  organized  to  protect  property,  and 
Congress  has  done  everything  in  its  power,  during  the 
last  thirty  years,  to  make  trust  organizers  feel  secure 
and  happy. 


77 


VII.     RAILROADS 

Predatory  power  in  the  United  States  centers  in 
three  institutions — the  bank,  the  trust  and  the  rail 
road.  In  previous  chapters  I  have  described  my  rela 
tions  with  the  money  power  and  with  the  masters  of 
organized  industry.  During  my  two  terms  in  the  Sen 
ate  I  had  many  a  struggle  with  the  representatives  and 
bankers  and  trust  magnates.  I  also  had  numerous 
encounters  with  the  spokesman  of  the  railroads,  which 
were,  perhaps,  the  most  powerful  and  aggressive  of 
the  vested  interests  during  the  last  two  decades  of  the 
nineteenth  century. 

Before  I  went  to  the  United  States  Senate  in  1889, 
I  had  built  and  operated  a  railroad  from  Sioux  Falls  to 
Yankton,  S.  D.  I  also  began  to  organize  and  build  the 
Midland  Pacific  Railroad,  from  Sioux  Falls,  S.  D.,  to 
Puget  Sound.  For  several  years  I  had  engineers  on 
the  road  locating  the  line  through  to  Seattle,  crossing 
the  Rocky  Mountains  near  the  mouth  of  Yellowstone 
Lake.  Consequently  I  was  thoroughly  familiar  with 
the  costs  of  railroad  building  and  operation. 

When  I  entered  the  Senate  I  was  of  the  opinion  that 
the  highways  of  the  United  States  should  be  owned  and 
operated  by  the  Government,  for  the  benefit  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States — operated  for  service  and 
not  for  profit.  At  the  beginning  of  my  term  I  knew 
very  little  of  the  general  operation  of  the  railroads  by 
the  great  combinations  which  then  controlled  them, 
but  a  short  time  in  the  Senate  clinched  this  conviction 
by  showing  me  that  the  railroads  were  robbing  the 
Government  as  well  as  the  people  of  the  United  States. 

For  instance,  I  found  that  J.  L.  Bell,  who  was  Second 
Assistant  Postmaster-General,  had  been  a  railroad  em 
ployee  at  a  salary  several  times  as  great  as  that  which 
he  received  as  Second  Assistant  Postmaster-General, 
and  that  he  had  resigned  his  position  with  the  rail 
roads  to  become  Assistant  Postmaster-General,  and  in 
that  capacity  to  direct  the  railroad  mail  service.  Thus 

78 


the  railroads  had  taken  charge  of  the  Po-st  Office  De 
partment  just  as  they  have  taken  charge  of  the  courts 
and  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission — by  the 
simple  expedient  of  putting  their  man  in  control.  This 
railroad  man  commissioned  in  the  public  service  to 
look  after  railroad  interests  invariably  proceeded  to  ex 
ploit  the  public  in  the  interests  of  the  special  interests 
for  which  he  was  working. 

Nowhere  did  I  see  this  principle  more  amply  illus 
trated  than  in  the  case  of  railway  mail  pay.  For  carry 
ing  the  mail,  during  the  time  I  served  in  the  Senate  of 
the  United  States,  the  railroads  received  ten  times  as 
much  per  pound  as  the  express  companies  paid  for 
carrying  express  matter  on  the  same  train,  and  gener 
ally  in  the  same  car.  In  addition,  when  the  railway 
mail-cars  were  established,  the  companies  rented  to  the 
Government  for  $6,000  per  year  cars  that  cost  less  than 
$3,000,  so  that  the  annual  rental  was  double  the  value 
of  the  car.  To  complete  the  work,  the  railroads  and 
their  attorneys  in  both  houses  of  Congress  franked 
great  quantities  of  Government  publications  and 
shipped  them  through  the  mails,  back  and  forth,  all 
over  the  United  States,  during  the  thirty  days  of  each 
year  when  the  mail  was  being  weighed  for  the  purpose 
of  determining  the  amount  of  compensation  that  the 
railroads  were  to  receive.  From  an  investigation  of 
the  matter  in  the  early  years  of  my  service  I  know  that 
this  practice  was  continued  during  the  twelve  years 
that  I  was  a  member  of  the  Senate,  and  that  millions 
of  pounds  of  Government  documents  were  shipped  back 
and  forth  every  year  under  a  frank  of  some  member  of 
Congress  or  member  of  the  Senate,  during  the  thirty 
days  the  mail  was  being  weighed  to  determine  the  com 
pensation  of  the  railroads,  and  that  J.  Laurie  Bell,  Sec 
ond  Assistant  Postmaster-General  and  his  successors, 
employee  of  the  railroads  rather  than  of  the  Govern 
ment,  superintended  the  job. 

This  abuse  was  so  open  and  so  flagrant  that  I  offered 
an  amendment  to  the  Post  Office  Appropriation  Bill, 

79 


reducing  the  compensation  for  carrying  the  mails 
twenty  per  cent,  and  an  investigation  verified  the  facts 
that  I  have  stated ;  yet  the  committee  would  not  report 
in  favor  of  reducing  the  pay  of  the  railroads  one  cent. 
Two-thirds  of  the  Senate  and  House  were  lawyers — 
very  many  of  them  in  the  direct  pay  of  the  railroads  on 
a  salary,  or  a  fee,  and  nothing  whatever  could  be  accom 
plished. 

When  the  Senate  investigated  this  question  and 
brought  the  employees  of  the  Second  Assistant  Post 
master-General  before  the  Committee,  they  deceived 
the  Committee  in  the  interest  of  the  railroads  whom 
they  were  serving.  I  quote  some  of  the  evidence  from 
the  Congressional  Record: 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "I  will  read  first  from  the  report 
of  the  Postmaster-General  under  the  head  of  'Weighing 
the  Mails,'  from  the  report  of  1896 : 

"  'The  Department  takes  every  precaution 
at  its  command  to  insure  honest  weighing  of 
the  railroad  mails.  But  this  has  not  prevented 
one  or  two  attempts  on  the  part  of  the  rail 
road  officials  to  pad  the  mails  during  the 
weighing  season/ 

What  are  the  facts  ?  The  Seaboard  Air  Line  procured 
116  tons  of  public  documents  franked  by  some  member 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  or  of  the  Senate. 
They  can  secure  them  without  the  connivance  at  all  of 
the  persons  who  frank  them.  They  ship  them  back  and 
forth  to  their  station  agents.  They  ship  this  franked 
matter  during  the  weighing  season  to  a  station,  and 
have  their  agents  take  out  the  packages  from  the  bags, 
redirect  them,  and  mail  them  again.  So  they  kept 
these  16  tons  of  frankable  matter  going  for  thirty 
days.  The  Department  determined  to  have  a  reweigh- 
ing.  They  had  a  reweighing  for  thirty  days  more,  and 
then  the  railroad  company  secured  an  extra  edition  of 
a  newspaper  that  weighed  5  tons;  they  shipped  that 
back  and  forth  along  the  line,  and  distributed  it  over 

80 


the  line  during  the  thirty  days,  and  when  the  Post 
master-General  complained,  they  asked  him  what  he 
was  going  to  do  about  it.  And  Mr.  McBee,  the  man 
ager  of  the  road,  asked  the  Postmaster-General  why 
the  Seaboard  Air  Line  had  been  singled  out  as  a  sub 
ject  for  criticism  for  stuffing  the  mails  during  the  re- 
weighing  period,  when  it  was  well  known  that  all  rail 
roads  practiced  the  same  fraud  upon  the  Government. 
So  it  is  the  general  practice.  There  is  no  doubt  about 
it.  Everybody  knows  it.  We  do  not  need  to  investi 
gate  the  matter  much  to  learn  that  fact.  .  .  ." 

There  is  a  great  profit  in  carrying  the  mail  which 
pays  2  cents  postage,  and  so  the  railroads  have  organ 
ized  on  their  own  hook  a  postal  system  which  defrauds 
the  Government  out  of  hundreds  of  thousands,  and  I 
believe  millions,  of  dollars  a  year  because  that  branch 
of  the  service,  the  carrying  of  letters,  is  profitable. 

The  railroads  did  not  stop  with  the  exploitation  of 
the  Government — they  were  criminal  in  their  treat 
ment  of  the  public.  The  railroads  gave  very  low  rates 
to  their  favorites,  and  very  high  rates  to  the  rest  of 
the  people.  They  determined  which  men  should  pros 
per  and  do  business  and  which  men  should  be  made 
bankrupt  by  their  discriminations.  They  also  deter 
mined,  through  their  rates,  which  town  should  grow 
and  which  should  languish.  A  prosperous  town  could 
be  destroyed  and  its  industries  closed  by  giving  to  its 
rival  town  a  railroad  rate  of  one-half  or  less,  and  this 
was  done  constantly.  The  Interstate  Commerce  Com 
mission  was  created  for  the  purpose  of  correcting  this 
and  similar  abuses.  Eleven  years  after  the  law  was 
passed  creating  the  Commission,  I  find  this  statement 
in  the  annual  report  (1898)  : 

"We  are  satisfied  from  investigations  con 
ducted  during  the  past  year  and  referred  to 
in  another  portion  of  this  report,  as  well  as 
from  information  which  his  perfectly  convinc 
ing  to  a  moral  intent,  .  .  .  that  a  large  part 

81 


of  the  business  at  the  present  time  is  trans 
acted  upon  illegal  rates.  Indeed,  so  general 
has  this  rule  become  that  in  certain  quarters 
the  exaction  of  the  published  rate  is  the  excep 
tion.  From  this,  two  things  naturally  and  fre 
quently  result:  First,  gross  discriminations 
between  individuals  and  gross  preference  be 
tween  localities;  and  these  discriminations 
and  preferences  are  almost  always  in  favor  of 
the  strong,  and  against  the  weak.  There  is 
probably  no  one  thing  today  which  does  so 
much  to  force  out  the  small  operator,  and  to 
build  up  those  trusts  and  monopolies  against 
which  law  and  public  alike  beat  in  vain,  as  dis 
crimination  in  freight  rates.  Second,  the  busi 
ness  of  railroad  transportation  is  carried  on  to 
a  very  large  extent  in  conceded  violations  of 
law.  Men  who  in  every  other  respect  are 
reputable  citizens  are  guilty  of  acts  which,  if 
the  statute  law  of  the  land  were  enforced, 
would  subject  them  to  fine  or  imprisonment." 

Further  on,  the  report  of  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission  says:  "Discriminations  are  always  in  fa 
vor  of  the  strong  and  against  the  weak.  This  condi 
tion  the  law  seems  powerless  to  control."  Thus  the 
railroads  were  above  the  law.  The  United  States 
judges,  generally  selected  from  the  ranks  of  the  corpo 
ration  and  railroad  attorneys,  go  upon  the  bench  to 
construe  the  law,  which  they  do  in  the  interest  of  their 
former  employers. 

A  prominent  oil  refiner  of  Pennsylvania,  writing  un 
der  date  of  October  4,  1899,  after  setting  forth  his  com 
plaint  against  the  railway  discrimination  in  favor  of  the 
Standard  Oil  Company,  gives  his  experience  as  follows : 

"I  manufacture  35,000  barrels  of  oil  per 
month.  Seventy  per  cent  of  that  is  marketed 
in  Europe  where  the  railroads  are  controlled 
by  the  governments.  We  have  no  difficulty  in 

82 


competing  with  the  Standard  Oil  Company  in 
those  countries,  because  our  tonnage  is  car 
ried  as  cheap  by  the  Government  as  that  of 
the  Standard  Oil  Company,  although  the 
Standard  Oil  Company  ships  one  thousand 
times  more  to  the  interior  of  the  several  coun 
tries  than  I  do.  The  reason  that  I  am  obliged  to 
send  70  per  cent  of  my  oil  across  the  Atlantic 
Ocean  to  be  marketed  is  because  I  cannot 
transport  it  over  the  railroads  of  the  United 
States  at  the  same  rates  as  the  Standard  Oil 
Company." 

How  much  influence  the  railroads  exerted  in  build 
ing  up  the  trusts  may  be  readily  inferred  from  the 
following  instance: 

The  Tin  Plate  Trust  was  endeavoring  to  make 
terms  with  an  independent  producer;  he  replied  that 
he  felt  no  desire  to  change  his  methods;  his  com 
pany  was  making  money,  doing  well  in  fact,  and 
were  quite  satisfied  with  their  plant  and  its  owner 
ship.  The  promoter  of  the  trust  advised  the  presi 
dent  of  the  company  that  it  would  be  better  to  sell 
out;  but  finding  his  offers  of  no  avail  to  secure  the 
property  he  proceeded  to  threats.  "You  are  enjoy 
ing  certain  concessions  in  your  freight  rates,"  he  said. 
"All  your  profits  would  cease  if  these  freight  rates 
were  withdrawn;  if  you  will  not  sell  to  us,  we  will 
see  what  we  can  do."  In  a  few  days  the  manager 
of  the  railway  wrote  the  independent  mill  owner 
that  the  rates  conceded  the  company  would  have  to 
be  withdrawn,  because,"  etc.  The  mill-owner  called 
a  meeting  of  the  stockholders  and  bondholders,  ex 
plained  the  situation,  and  in  two  weeks  the  mill  was 
turned  over  to  the  trust. 

So  much  for  the  attitude  of  the  railroads  toward 
the  Government  and  towards  the  people  of  the  United 
States.  Now,  a  word  as  to  another  phase  of  their 
activity — the  financing. 

83 


The  railroads  of  the  United  States  when  they  wen; 
constructed  were  bonded  for  more  than  they  actu 
ally  cost,  and  then  those  who  were  manipulating; 
them  issued  common  and  preferred  stock  for  con 
siderable  more  than  the  amount  of  the  bonds.  Thus 
both  bonds  and  stocks  are  simply  gambling  chips 
which  can  be  used  to  swindle  the  American  public. 

Railroad  securities  should  be  the  most  stable  of 
all  securities  because  the  railroads  are  the  highways 
of  the  nation,  and  their  service  is  absolutely  essen 
tial  and  reasonably  uniform.  Yet  for  many  years 
these  railroad  securities  have  been  the  football  o1' 
gamblers. 

While  I  was  in  the  Senate  the  price  of  the  leading 
railroad  stocks  fluctuated  from  30  to  300  per  cent  in 
a  single  year,  and  the  price  of  the  bonds  from  5  tc 
100  per  cent.  At  the  same  time,  the  bulk  of  the 
stocks  paid  no  dividends,  and  large  numbers  of  the 
bonds  paid  no  interest.  To  show  how  largely  fic 
titious  these  stocks  and  bonds  were  considered,  I  take 
the  following  table  from  the  report  of  the  Interstate 
Commerce  Commission: 


Per 

Funded  debt 

Percent 

cent  of 

(exclusive  of 

of 

total 

equipment  trust 

total 

Per  cent  paid 

Stocks 

stock 

obligations) 

funded 

Nothing  paid  . 

.   $3,570,155,239 

66.26 

$    852,402,622 

15.82 

From  1  to    2.  . 

142,496,300 

2.65 

176,996,988 

3.28 

From  2  to    3.  . 

118,096,361 

2.19 

162,789,940 

3.02 

From  3  to    4.  . 

96,348,397 

1.79 

673,945,852 

12.51 

From  4  to    5.  . 

385,381,689 

7.15 

1,766,290,104 

32.77 

From  5  to    6.  . 

409,778,699 

7.60 

928,046,512 

17.22 

From  6  to    7.  . 

198,603,262 

3.69 

562,732,833 

10.44 

From  7  to    8.  . 

244,736,724 

4.54 

229,716,648 

4.26 

From  8  to     9.  . 

127,852,050 

2.37 

27,762,600 

51. 

From  9  to  10.  . 

6,698,055 

.13 

5,014,300 

.09 

10  and  above  .  . 

88,121,545 

1.63 

4,236,300 

.08 

Total  

.    $5,388,268,321 

100. 

$5,389,934,599 

100. 

We  see  from  this  statement  that  three  and  one-half 
billion  of  the  five  and  a  half  billion  of  railway  stock 
paid  no  dividends,  while  nearly  a  billion  of  the  bonds 


84 


received  no  interest,  and  six  hundred  millions  more 
of  stock  and  bonds  paid  only  a  return  between  1  and 
3  per  cent.  These  facts  are  only  noted  in  order  that 
the  notion  of  the  total  value  of  railways  may  not  be 
erroneously  inferred  from  a  merely  nominal  capi 
talization. 

The  situation  is  well  summed  up  in  the  case  of  the 
Union  &  Central  Pacific  Railroads  which  were  con 
ceived  in  the  womb  of  the  Republican  Party;  were 
born  into  the  world  as  the  full-fledged  children  of 
corruption  and  iniquity,  and  which  never  for  one  day 
drew  an  honest  breath.  Ames  and  his  associates 
(who  were,  like  Ames,  the  most  prominent  bankers 
and  business  men  of  their  day)  organized  the  Credit 
Mobilier,  came  to  Washington,  and  acted  as  mid- 
wives  for  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  while  it 
gave  birth  to  these  twins. 

Ames  and  his  associates  distributed  the  stock  of 
the  Credit  Mobilier  among  the  Senators  and  members 
of  the  House  of  Representatives,  every  Republican 
member  with  a  particle  of  influence  receiving  a 
share,  while  almost  all  of  the  prominent  Democratic 
leaders  were  taken  care  of  in  the  same  manner. 
Thereupon  laws  were  passed  by  which  the  Govern 
ment  of  the  United  States  gave  these  two  roads  a 
land  grant  of  half  of  all  the  land  ten  miles  wide  on 
each  side  of  the  track  from  Omaha  to  San  Francisco, 
and  in  addition  furnished  a  sum  of  money  more  than 
sufficient  to  build  and  equip  the  roads.  In  exchange 
for  this  grant  of  money,  the  Government  received  a 
second  mortgage.  The  roads  never  paid  any  in 
terest  to  the  Government,  and  in  1896  when  the  sec 
ond  mortgage  fell  due  the  managers  of  the  roads 
selected  a  reorganizing  committee  of  professional  ex 
ploiters  to  devise  ways  and  means  to  swindle  the 
Government  out  of  its  money, — principal  and  inter 
est.  This  reorganization  committee  consisted  of 
Marvin  Hughitt,  President  of  the  Chicago  and  North 

85 


Western  Railroad,  Chauncey  Depew,  President  of  the 
New  York  Central,  and  Louis  Fitzgerald,  T.  J.  Cool- 
idge  and  Oliver  Ames,  who  represented  the  Goulds 
of  New  York  and  the  Ames  crowd  of  Boston. 

I  met  this  proposal  of  the  reorganization  commit 
tee  by  introducing  a  resolution  directing  the  Secre 
tary  of  the  Treasury  to  proceed  at  once  to  foreclose 
the  mortgage  held  by  the  Government  on  the  Union 
Pacific  and  the  Kansas  Pacific  companies;  to  pay  oif 
the  prior  liens  and  the  floating  indebtedness;  to  as 
sume  control  of  all  the  property  of  the  two  roadt, 
including  the  Federal  land  grants ;  to  take  possession 
of  the  roads,  and  to  pay  the  necessary  costs  by  the 
sale  of  three  per  cent  bonds. 

I  will  let  the  Congressional  Record  tell  the  rest  of 
this  story : 

Mr.  PETTIGREW :  "Mr.  President,  I  wish  to  call 
the  especial  attention  of  the  Committee  on  Pacific 
Railroads  to  this  resolution,  for  I  think  it  outlines  a 
method  by  which  to  solve  this  much-discussed  ques 
tion  in  a  businesslike  manner,  and  in  the  only  way  it 
can  be  solved  with  credit  to  the  Government.  We 
have  only  the  interests  of  the  whole  people  to  con 
sider.  There  are  no  equities  in  this  case  in  favor 
of  the  present  stockholders  of  these  roads,  and  I  will 
show  that  the  reorganization  committee  of  the  stock 
holders  of  the  roads  are  entitled  to  no  consideration 
whatever,  as  they  represent  the  heartless  and  un 
scrupulous  scamps  that  have  been  robbing  the  Govern 
ment  and  the  public  for  a  generation,  casting  re 
proach  upon  our  Government  and  our  people  that  must 
make  every  honest  citizen  blush  with  shame. 

"The  stockholders  and  owners  of  the  first  mort 
gage  bonds  on  the  Union  and  Kansas  Pacific  Rail 
roads  have  appointed  a  committee  to  reorganize  the 
road  and  to  settle  with  the  Government  for  its  second 
mortgage  upon  the  property.  This  reorganization 
committee  proposes  to  issue  one  hundred  million  of 

86 


fifty-year  4  per  cent  bonds  on  about  1,900  miles  of 
road — that  is,  the  road  from  Omaha  to  Ogden,  which 
is  the  main  line  of  the  Union  Pacific,  and  about  400 
miles  of  road  from  Kansas  City  west,  which  is  the 
Kansas  Pacific  Railroad.  .  •  . 

'This  1,900  miles  of  railroad  can  be  reproduced 
for  $23,600  per  mile,  and  yet  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  is  asked  to  go  into  partnership  with  a 
party  of  dishonest  men,  and  bond  and  stock  the  road 
for  $123,600  per  mile,  and  the  public  whom  this  road 
serves  is  to  be  called  upon  to  pay  interest  on  this  vast 
sum.  .  .  . 

"But  they  go  further  than  this,  and  tell  us  how 
they  will  distribute  this  vast  amount  of  stocks  and 
bonds.  They  propose  that  the  Government  shall 
take  $34,000,000  of  the  bonds,  which  is  just  equal 
to  the  principal  of  the  Government's  claim  against 
the  roads,  and  shall  take  $20,000,000  of  the  pre 
ferred  stock  in  full  payment  for  all  the  defaulting  in 
terest;  that  the  first-mortgage  bonds,  which  amount 
to  $34,000,000,  shall  be  taken  up  and  a  like  number 
of  these  new  bonds  issued  in  their  place;  and  for 
every  $1,000  of  bonds  issued  to  the  present  holders 
of  the  first-mortgage  bonds  of  these  roads,  $500  of 
preferred  stock  shall  be  issued  as  a  bonus,  the  re 
mainder  of  the  stock  and  the  remainder  of  the  bonds 
to  be  the  property  undoubtedly  of  the  conspirators 
in  this  stupendous  transaction. 

"Let  us  see  who  are  the  men  who  compose  this  re 
organization  committee  of  the  Union  and  the  Kansas 
Pacific  railroads.  This  reorganization  committee  is 
composed  of  five  members,  Louis  Fitzgerald,  T.  J. 
Coolidge  and  Oliver  Ames  being  three  out  of  the  five 
members  of  the  reorganization  committee  (who  rep 
resent  the  old  management  of  the  road,  the  Goulds 
of  New  York  and  the  Ameses  of  Boston) ,  the  other 
two  being  Marvin  Hughitt  and  Chauncey  Depew. 
While  every  one  of  the  receivers  who  are  now  man- 

87 


aging  and  operating  the  road  is  in  the  interest  of  this 
gang  of  highwaymen  who  have  plundered  the  public 
with  this  instrumentality  in  the  past,  three  of  the  re 
ceivers,  namely  S.  H.  H.  Clark,  who  was  formerly 
manager  and  for  years  president  of  the  road,  has 
been  and  is  the  representative  of  the  Gould  interest; 
Mr.  Mink,  of  Boston,  was  comptroller  of  the  com 
pany  and  has  been  for  years  its  vice-president,  and 
is  also  an  executor  of  the  will  of  the  late  Fred  L. 
Ames,  and  is  of  course  the  direct  and  immediate  rep 
resentative  of  the  Boston  crowd  of  highwaymen  who, 
through  the  use  of  this  highway — the  Union  and  the 
Kansas  Pacific  Railroads — have  robbed  the  public 
and  the  Government  for  the  past  thirty  years.  The 
third  receiver,  who  has  always  acted  with  this  in 
terest,  is  E.  Ellery  Anderson,  who  has  also  been  for 
several  years  a  Government  director,  and  was  placed 
there  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  the  Government^ 
interests,  but  has  never  undertaken  to  protect  the 
Government's  interests,  and  has  always  acted  in  the 
interest  of  the  old  and  dishonest  management.  The 
other  two  receivers  of  the  road,  Coudert  and  Doane, 
seem  to  have  a  leaning  in  the  same  direction,  for 
they  have  been  Government  directors,  and  have 
never  remonstrated  against  the  frauds  which  have 
disgraced  the  management  of  these  roads,  and  of 
which  they  must  have  had  knowledge. 

"If  this  reorganization  plan  is  carried  through 
with  the  assistance  of  the  Government  the  road  will 
have  to  earn  4  per  cent  of  $100,000,000  of  bonds  and 
5  per  cent  at  least  on  $75,000,000  of  preferred  stock, 
and  the  people  along  the  line  of  the  road  will  be 
charged  a  rate  sufficient  to  accomplish  this  result, 
even  if  no  dividend  whatever  is  paid  upon  the  $60,- 
000,000  of  common  stock.  This  interest  charged, 
then,  will  amount  to  $7,750,000  a  year,  which  would 
be  an  unjustifiable  burden  upon  the  people  who  are 
served  by  the  road.  The  only  reasonable  and  proper 

88 


thing  for  the  Government  of  the  United  States  to  do 
is  to  take  possession  of  the  road,  issue  its  own  bonds 
bearing  3  per  cent  interest  as  provided  by  the  reso 
lution  which  I  have  offered,  pay  the  first-mortgage 
bonds  of  $34,000,000,  refund  to  the  Government  of 
the  United  States  the  $53,000,000  now  due  to  the 
Government  from  these  companies,  take  up  and  pay 
the  floating  debt  of  these  roads  of  $12,000,000,  and 
thus  get  possession  of  the  bonds  and  stocks  which 
are  held  as  collateral  security  for  this  floating  debt, 
and  thus  acquire  title  to  $98,000,000  par  value  of  the 
branch  lines'  bonds  and  stock,  the  market  value  of 
which  is  at  least  $42,000,000  at  the  present  time, 
thus  taking  possession  of  all  the  branch  lines  of  these 
roads,  amounting  to  4,000  miles  of  track,  and  oper 
ate  the  whole  as  one  great  system. 

"In  this  way  the  Government  would  realize  every 
dollar  these  roads  owe  it.  The  interest  charged 
would  be  only  3  per  cent  on  $100,000,000  of  bonds, 
or  $3,000,000  per  annum,  instead  of  $7,750,000  un 
der  the  plan  proposed  by  the  reorganization  com 
mittee.  The  rates  for  carrying  freight  and  pas 
sengers  would  therefore  be  much  less.  There  would 
be  no  incentive  for  discrimination  in  favor  of  persons 
or  places;  every  man  and  every  town  would  have  an 
equal  opportunity,  and  the  scandal  of  our  Govern 
ment  connected  with  the  Union  Pacific  management 
would  disappear  from  the  pages  of  our  history." 

I  have  devoted  more  space  to  the  Union  &  Central 
Pacific  than  I  would  were  it  not  for  the  fact  that 
their  history,  management  and  method  are  a  true 
picture  of  the  railroad  situation  in  the  United  States. 

Before  I  leave  the  subject  I  should  like  to  quote 
an  interesting  passage  from  the  autobiography  of 
Charles  Francis  Adams,  who  was  made  President  of 
the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  in  1884.  Mr.  Adams,  in 
referring  to  the  dealings  between  the  Union  Pacific 
and  the  Government  with  regard  to  the  second  mort- 

89 


gage  which  the  Government  held  on  the  road,  or. 
page  192  writes: 

"I  was  sent  over  to  Washington  to  avert  the 
threatened  action  of  the  Government,  and  then  and 
there  I  had  my  first  experience  in  the  most  hopeless; 
and  repulsive  work  in  which  I  ever  was  engaged — 
transacting  business  with  the  United  States  Govern 
ment  and  trying  to  accomplish  something  through 
Congressional  action.  My  initial  episode  was  with 
a  prominent  member  of  the  United  States  Senate 
This  senator  is  still  (1912)  alive  though  long  retired 
He  has  a  great  reputation  for  ability  and  a  certair 
reputation,  somewhat  fly-blown  it  is  true,  for  rugged 
honesty.  I  can  only  say  that  I  found  him  an  ill- 
mannered  bully  and  by  all  odds  the  most  covertly 
and  dangerously  corrupt  man  I  ever  had  opportunity 
and  occasion  carefully  to  observe  in  public  life.  His 
grudge  against  the  Union  Pacific  was  that  it  had  not 
retained  him.  While  he  took  excellent  care  of  those 
competing  concerns  which  had  been  wiser  in  this 
respect,  he  never  lost  an  opportunity  of  posing  as  the 
fearless  antagonist  of  corporations  when  the  Union 
Pacific  came  to  the  front.  For  that  man,  on  good 
and  sufficient  grounds,  I  entertained  a  deep  dislike. 
He  was  distinctly  dishonest  —  a  senatorial  bribe 
taker." 

Early  in  my  term  of  service  in  the  Senate,  the  rail 
roads  began  to  combine  and  to  pool  the  freight  and 
to  agree  upon  rates.  The  combination  of  the  rail 
roads  was  in  violation  of  the  Anti-Trust  Law,  but  the 
law  had  been  framed  to  make  it  as  easy  as  possible 
for  the  corporations  to  evade  its  provisions,  and  the 
railroads  cared  nothing  about  the  Anti-Trust  Law 
because  their  lawyers  were  in  the  executive  offices 
and  on  the  bench.  When  the  Joint  Traffic  Asso 
ciation  was  organized  in  violation  of  the  Sherman 
Anti-Trust  Law,  and  suit  was  brought  by  the  Gov 
ernment  to  dissolve  it  on  that  account,  it  was  found 

90 


that  the  Association  was  a  combination  of  thirty-two 
of  the  leading  roads  in  the  United  States  to  pool  the 
business,  agree  upon  the  division  of  traffic,  and  have 
uniform  rates,  so  far  as  the  public  was  concerned; 
that  Hobart,  Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  was 
one  of  the  arbitrators  and  drew  a  salary  as  such 
arbitrator  for  this  Joint  Traffic  Association,  and  when 
the  suit  was  brought  before  the  United  States  Court 
in  New  York,  Judge  Lacombe  announced  from  the 
bench  that  he  was  disqualified  from  sitting  on  the 
case  because  he  owned  the  stocks  and  bonds  cf  the 
defendant  railroads,  and  he  said:  "I  am  of  the  opin 
ion  that  there  is  no  judge  in  this  Circuit  but  that  is 
suffering  a  like  disqualification." 

In  1874,  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  in  response 
to  a  general  demand,  appointed  a  Special  Committee  on 
Transporattion,  composed  of  William  Windom,  of  Min 
nesota,  John  Sherman,  of  Ohio,  Roscoe  Conkling,  of 
New  York,  H.  G.  Davis,  of  West  Virginia,  T.  M.  Nor 
wood  of  Georgia,  J.  W.  Johnson,  of  Virginia,  John  H. 
Mitchell,  of  Oregon,  and  S.  B.  Canover,  of  Florida. 
The  committee  occupied  the  entire  summer  of  1874  in 
making  an  exhaustive  examination  of  the  subject,  and 
in  their  report  we  find  the  following : 

"In  the  matter  of  taxation,  there  are  today 
four  men  representing  the  four  great  trunk 
lines  between  Chicago  and  New  York,  who 
possess,  and  who  not  unfrequently  exercise, 
powers  which  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States  would  not  dare  to  exert.  They  may  at 
any  time,  and  for  any  reason  satisfactory  to 
themselves,  by  a  single  stroke  of  the  pen,  re 
duce  the  value  of  property  in  this  country  by 
hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars.  An  additional 
charge  of  five  cents  per  bushel  on  the  trans 
portation  of  cereals  would  have  been  equiva 
lent  to  a  tax  of  forty-five  millions  of  dollars. 
No  congress  would  dare  to  exercise  so  vast  a 

91 


power  upon  a  necessity  of  the  most  imperative 
nature,  and  yet  these  gentlemen  exercise  it 
whenever  it  suits  their  supreme  will  and  plea 
sure,  without  explanation  or  apology.  With 
the  rapid  and  inevitable  progress  of  combina 
tion  and  consolidation,  these  colossal  organi 
zations  are  daily  becoming  stronger  and  more 
imperious.  The  day  is  not  distant,  if  it  has 
not  already  arrived,  when  it  will  be  the  duty 
of  the  statesman  to  inquire  whether  there  is 
less  danger  in  leaving  the  property  and  in 
dustrial  interests  of  the  people  thus  wholly 
at  the  mercy  of  a  few  men  who  recognize  no 
responsibility  and  no  principle  of  action  but 
personal  aggrandizement." 

All  of  these  facts  convinced  me  that  the  only  pos 
sible  remedy  was  the  Government  ownership  of  the 
railroads.  I  therefore  prepared  and  introduced  a 
bill  for  this  purpose  (Senate  Bill  No.  1770)  on  the 
18th  day  of  December,  1899.  This  bill  provided 
that  the  railroads  should  be  operated  under  the 
Post  Office  Department,  and  operated  for  service  and 
not  for  profit,  and  that  the  owners  should  receive 
United  States  bonds  for  the  actual  value  of  the  prop 
erty.  At  that  time  the  roads  would  have  cost  the  Gov 
ernment  between  four  and  five  billions,  although  they 
were  capitalized  at  from  eight  to  nine  billions,  in 
cluding  the  stocks  and  the  bonds.  I  also  included  in 
this  bill  a  provision  that  all  rates  should  be  abso 
lutely  uniform,  alike  for  everybody  in  proportion  to 
the  service  rendered ;  that  passenger  fares  should  not 
exceed  one  cent  per  mile,  and  I  showed  conclusively 
that  passengers  should  be  carried  in  this  country  at 
a  profit  at  one  cent  per  mile,  provided  no  passes 
were  granted.  I  knew  the  extent  of  the  pass  abuse. 
I  knew  that  every  politician  and  every  lawyer  of 
any  prominence,  and  every  judge,  and  every  con 
gressman,  and  everybody  else  that  had  any  pull,  rode 

92 


upon  a  pass,  and  that  the  public  was  charged  two 
prices  for  riding,  in  order  to  pay  the  railroads  for 
carrying  free  those  people  who  could  best  afford  to 
pay  their  fare. 

I  also  provided  for  a  Commission  of  Transportation 
in  this  law,  under  the  Post  Office  Department,  to 
operate  the  roads  and  to  remove  the  control,  as  far  as 
possible,  from  political  influence.  The  bill  also  pro 
vided  that  the  express  business  should  be  done  by  the 
Government,  and  I  showed  that  the  express  business 
could  be  done  at  a  cost  to  the  public  of  less  than 
one-half  the  price  charged  by  the  express  companies 
if  done  by  the  Government  through  the  Postoffice  on 
Government  railroads. 

When  I  introduced  the  bill  and  had  it  printed, 
some  of  my  friends  came  to  me  and  said:  "Well, 
what  will  your  friend  James  J.  Hill  think  of  your 
introducing  a  bill  for  the  government  ownership  of 
the  railroads?"  I  said:  "James  J.  Hill  is  a  big  man; 
he  is  one,  out  of  the  whole  railroad  system,  that  is 
not  a  stock  gambler,  and  I  sent  him  the  first  copy 
of  the  bill  that  was  printed/'  Some  months  after 
ward,  when  I  met  Mr.  Hill,  the  first  thing  he  said 
was:  "I  received  your  Railroad  Bill,  and  you  are 
entirely  right  about  it  If  the  railroads  are  going  to 
combine — and"  said  he,  "they  are  going  to  combine 
— the  only  way  the  public  can  be  protected  from 
robbery  is  to  have  the  Government  own  the  rail 
roads." 

Needless  to  say,  my  bill  received  scant  considera 
tion  and  little  support  from  the  champions  of  priv 
ilege  who  dominated  the  House  and  Senate,  nor  need 
I  add  that  its  introduction  marked  me  as  a  man  who 
should  be  eliminated  from  public  life  at  the  earliest 
possible  moment.  I  am  now  of  the  opinion  that  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  should  take  the 
railroads  and  cancel  all  the  outstanding  stocks  and 
bonds  without  making  any  payment  to  the  holders 

93 


of  the  same.  There  are  no  innocent  owners.  The 
railroads  are  the  highways  of  the  nation  and  have 
been  built  and  paid  for  more  than  once  by  the  Ameri 
can  people,  but  are  now  in  the  hands  of  a  gang  of 
gambling  scoundrels  who  are  using  these  highways 
to  enrich  themselves  and  their  favorites  and  to  rob 
and  exploit  the  whole  population.  To  take  the  roads 
without  paying  anything  to  these  thieves  is  not  con 
fiscation  or  robbery,  but  simply  returning  the  stolen 
property  to  its  rightful  owners. 

The  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  has  just  is 
sued  a  report  showing  that,  out  of  627,930  stock 
holders  in  the  various  railroads  of  the  United  States, 
the  majority  of  stock  is  owned  by  only  8,031  persons 
or  1.3  per  cent  of  all  the  stockholders. 

The  Commission,  through  its  Bureau  of  Statistics, 
has  discovered  that  of  a  total  of  97,475,776  shares 
of  all  the  railroads,  50,873,322  shares  are  held  by  the 
small  minority,  an  average  of  6,130  shares  each. 
The  balance  of  46,602,454  shares  is  owned  by  649,- 
629  stockholders,  an  average  of  75  shares  each.  The 
8,031  stockholders  who  own  the  majority  stock  in 
clude  holding  companies  of  railroads,  as  well  as 
other  corporations.  It  also  includes  the  stock  held 
by  voting  trustees  and  estates.  The  Interstate  Com 
merce  Commission's  Report  distributes  these  hold 
ings  as  follows : 

Shares 

Held  by  other  railway  companies 24,638,407 

By  other  corporations  or  partnerships.  .    11,565,838 

By  voting  trustees 5,307,043 

By  estates 1,333,961 

By  individuals  (males)    6,945,205 

By  individuals  (females)    . 1,082,868 

The  report  shows  that  of  100,000  stockholders  in 
the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  the  largest  twenty  own 
8.9  per  cent  of  the  total  stock  outstanding;  that  of 
the  27,000  stockholders  in  the  New  York  Central, 

94 


25.1  per  cent  is  held  by  the  largest  twenty  stock 
holders.  The  largest  twenty  shareholders  in  the 
Illinois  Central  own  41.6  per  cent;  in  the  Southern 
Pacific  23  per  cent;  in  the  Southern  Railway,  37.7 
per  cent;  in  the  Chicago  &  Northwestern,  20.9  per 
cent;  in  the  Great  Northern  18.5  per  cent;  in  the 
Northern  Pacific,  19.8  per  cent;  in  the  Chicago,  Mil 
waukee  &  St.  Paul,  18.5  per  cent;  in  the  Lehigh 
Valley,  18.1  per  cent;  in  the  Baltimore  &  Ohio,  17.4 
per  cent;  in  the  New  York,  New  Haven  &  Hartford, 
15.3  per  cent;  in  the  Erie,  19.7  per  cent;  in  the 
Atchison,  Topeka  &  Santa  Fe,  14.3  per  cent. 

One  hundred  per  cent  of  the  stock  of  the  Penn 
sylvania  Company,  which  owns  all  the  Pennsylvania 
Lines  wrest  of  Pittsburgh  and  Erie,  is  owned  by  17 
shareholders,  including  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad 
Company,  which  is  the  holding  concern.  The  en 
tire  stock  of  the  Philadelphia  &  Reading,  one  of  the 
principal  coal  roads,  is  owned  by  thirteen  stock 
holders,  including  the  Reading  Company;  and  99.5 
per  cent  of  the  stock  of  the  C.  B.  &  Q.  is  owned  by 
the  twenty  largest  shareholders  out  of  a  total  of  326 
shareholders. 

The  largest  blocks  of  stock  of  the  Erie;  Phila 
delphia  &  Reading;  Wabash;  Southern;  Chicago, 
Milwaukee  &  St.  Paul;  Great  Northern;  Northern 
Pacific;  Chicago,  Rock  Island  &  Pacific  and  Union 
Pacific  are  held  by  corporations  or  partnerships  other 
than  railways. 

Of  the  Wabash  stock,  46,000  shares  are  held  in 
Amsterdam,  Holland,  and  36,000  shares  by  fourteen 
New  York  and  one  Boston  concern.  Of  the  Chicago, 
Milwaukee  &  St.  Paul,  216,000  shares  are  held  by 
eleven  New  York  concerns;  the  bulk  of  the  stock 
of  the  Virginia  Railway  is  held  by  the  Tidewater 
Company;  the  stock  of  the  Bessemer  &  Lake  Erie 
is  owned  by  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation. 

Virtually  all  the  corporations  that  are  among  the 

95 


largest  shareholders  of  the  various  railroads  do  busi 
ness  with  these  railroads  and  obtain  special  advan 
tages. 

The  earlier  reports  of  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission  show  that  the  largest  industrial  monop 
olies  of  the  country  were  favored  by  the  railroads 
to  the  extent  of  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  in 
rebates,  drawbacks  and  differentials;  and  that  the 
railroads  were  managed  largely  in  the  interest  01 
these  monopolies  as  against  the  interest  of  rival  con 
cerns  and  the  public  generally.  This  is  particularly 
true  with  reference  to  Standard  Oil,  as  disclosed  by 
reports  of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  and 
by  the  testimony  of  witnesses  before  Congressional 
Investigation  Committees. 

The  par  value  of  railroad  stocks  is  generally  $100 
a  share,  which  means  that  the  97,475,776  shares  o:: 
the  railroads  are  estimated  to  be  worth  $9,747,- 
577,600.  The  total  value  of  the  bonds  issued  by  the 
various  railroads  up  to  December  31,  1916,  is  esti 
mated  at  $11,202,607,096. 

It  is  obvious  from  this  record  that  the  control  and 
ownership  of  the  stocks  of  the  railroads  of  the  United 
States  is  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  those  who 
enjoy  excessive  private  fortunes  and  there  is  no 
doubt  that  a  similar  or  more  acute  state  of  concen 
tration  exists  in  all  other  monopolistic  corporations. 

It  is  quite  evident,  from  the  facts  above  adduced, 
that  the  Morgan  and  Rockefeller  groups  own  the 
controlling  interest  in  the  railroads  of  the  United 
States.  The  common  people  who  own  stocks  and 
bonds  in  the  roads  are  so  few  in  number  that  they 
have  neither  voice  nor  power  in  the  management. 

THE  "WIDOW  AND  ORPHAN"  CRY  IS  AN  OLD 
"WOLF"  CRY  OF  THE  BANKERS  AND  SPECU 
LATORS  WHO  HAVE  STOLEN  THEIR  CONTROL 
OF  THE  TRANSPORTATION  SYSTEMS  OF  THE 
COUNTRY.  IF  THERE  ARE  ANY  CONSIDER- 

96 


ABLE  NUMBER  OF  WORTHY  WIDOWS  OR  OR 
PHANS  OR  "COMMON  PEOPLE"  HOLDING 
STOCKS  IT  WERE  BETTER  TO  PENSION  THESE 
PEOPLE  FOR  LIFE  AND  PROCEED  TO  TAKE 
OVER  THE  RAILROADS. 

After  many  years  of  investigation  devoted  to  this 
subject,  I  am  convinced  that  the  highways  of  the  nation 
should  be  taken  over  by  the  Government  and  operated 
for  the  good  of  the  people. 

The  Government  of  the  United  States  took  over  and 
operated  the  roads  for  a  little  over  two  years  during  the 
war,  at  the  request  of  the  railroads,  under  terms  and 
conditions  that  were  absolutely  infamous,  by  which  the 
government  was  plundered  out  of  billions  of  dollars. 
But  before  the  roads  were  turned  over  to  the  Govern 
ment  to  operate,  these  scamps  (who  ought  to  occupy 
cells  in  our  penitentiaries),  and  I  mean  by  that  the 
bankers  of  New  York,  the  Federal  Reserve  Board,  the 
managers  and  owners  of  the  railroads,  and  the  great 
industrial  trust  combinations,  organized  companies  to 
take  over  the  shops  of  all  of  the  great  railroads  con 
trolled  by  them.  These  companies  were  incorporated 
under  the  infamous  laws  of  New  York  and  New  Jersey 
and  all  of  the  shops  of  the  great  railroads  were  con 
veyed  to  those  companies,  not  only  the  repair  shops, 
but  the  great  factories  where  they  manufacture  equip 
ment  for  the  railroads  of  every  kind  and  sort,  so  that 
after  the  Government  began  the  operation  of  the  roads 
they  had  to  hire  all  of  their  repairs,  and  buy  all  of 
their  equipment  of  these  great  combinations,  and  they 
paid  from  four  to  ten  times  as  much  as  the  service  and 
material  was  worth  that  they  bought  of  these  inside 
corporations  controlled  by  the  biggest  stockholders  of 
the  railroads. 

They  also  organized  terminal  companies  wherever 
the  terminals  were  of  great  value,  in  all  the  great  cities 
of  the  United  States,  and  separated  the  terminals  from 
the  railroads,  and  then  they  charged  as  rent  for  the 

97 


use  of  the  terminals,  a  rental  in  many  instances,  as 
high  as  one  hundred  per  cent  per  year  on  actual  cost  of 
the  terminal.  For  these  terminals  were  conveyed  to 
these  companies  for  the  purpose  of  swindling  the  Gov 
ernment  during  its  operation  and  to  make  it  appear 
that  the  operation  by  the  Government  of  the  roads  did 
not  pay,  and  owing  to  the  enormous  prices  which  these 
men  compelled  the  Government  to  pay,  not  only  for 
terminals  and  switching  facilities,  but  for  repairs  and 
new  equipment,  accounts  for  the  failure  of  the  roads 
to  be  properly  bperated  by  the  Government.  But  the 
roads  were  not  really  operated  by  the  Government  at 
all.  Ostensibly  they  were.  That  was  the  talk,  but  the 
fact  is  that  the  management  remained  in  the  hands  of 
the  old  crowd. 

I  know  very  intimately  the  president  of  one  of  the 
great  railroads.  He  was  president  during  the  entire 
time  that  the  Government  pretended  to  operate  the 
roads,  and  he  is  still  president  of  the  road  at  a  salary 
of  fifty  thousand  dollars  a  year.  The  president  of  that 
road  is  the  operating  man,  and  he  continued  to  operate 
the  road  just  the  same  as  he  always  had,  while  the 
Government  had  control,  and  he  assured  me  that  that 
was  the  case  with  practically  all  of  the  roads.  They 
were  simply  using  the  camouflage  of  government  own 
ership  and  operation  to  plunder  the  Government  and 
the  public  generally,  and  he  said  to  me,  "We  have  no 
interest  in  making  government  control  popular."  But 
while  it  was  an  infamous  transaction  to  turn  the  roads 
over  to  the  Government,  the  crowning  infamy  was  the 
Cummings  bill,  by  which  the  railroads  were  taken  back 
from  the  Government,  to  whom  they  had  never  been 
conveyed,  and  the  Government  guaranteed  dividends 
on  their  stock  and  interest  on  their  bonds. 

THE  REMEDY  IS  FOR  THE  GOVERNMENT  OF 
THE  UNITED  STATES  TO  TAKE  OVER  ALL  THE 
RAILROADS  WITHOUT  PAYING  ONE  CENT  FOR 
THEIR  STOCKS  OR  BONDS.  The  railroads  have 

98 


been  paid  for  by  the  American  people  over  and  over 
again,  and  they  are  the  property  of  the  American 
people.  They  are  the  highways  of  the  nation.  They 
are  in  the  hands  of  a  small  number  of  gambling  bank 
ers  who  use  the  stock  and  bonds  as  chips  in  the  gam 
bling  game  to  swindle  the  public.  There  are  no  in 
nocent  purchasers  of  their  stocks,  and  if  any  of  the 
stocks  are  owned  by  widows  or  orphans,  they  are 
widows  and  orphans  of  a  gambler,  and  if  they  are 
impoverished  by  the  cancellation  of  these  stocks  and 
bonds  and  the  taking  over  the  railroads  by  the  people 
of  the  United  States,  and  are  unable  to  work,  I  am 
perfectly  willing  that  an  asylum  should  be  built  to 
take  care  of  them  as  long  as  they  live. 

The  owners  of  the  railroads  are  entitled  to  no  con 
sideration  whatever  from  the  American  people.  They 
have  forfeited  all  right  to  any  consideration  whatever. 

It  is  now  nearly  twenty-five  years  since  I  introduced 
a  bill  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  to  take  over 
and  operate  the  railroad  companies  for  service,  and  not 
for  profit ;  operate  them  by  the  Postoffice  Department. 
I  showed  in  an  argument  in  the  Senate  that  the  rail 
roads  could  reduce  their  freight  rates  one-half  and  still 
be  operated  at  a  profit,  if  all  favors  granted  to  big 
trusts  and  combinations  were  eliminated  and  the  serv 
ice  granted  to  all  the  people  on  equal  terms.  I  showed 
that  the  practice  was  for  the  big  stockholders  to  be 
come  interested  in  some  manufacturing  enterprise  and 
then  cut  rates  to  less  than  half  what  they  gave  to  the 
public,  to  the  favored  enterprises.  I  showed  that  these  f 
people  who  could  afford  to  pay  their  fare  rode  on  a 
pass,  and  that  the  common  people  paid  three  to  four 
cents  a  mile,  and  I  provided  in  this  bill  that  passenger 
fares  should  hereafter,  under  government  ownership, 
be  one  cent  per  mile  for  everybody,  and  no  passes 
granted  to  anyone.  I  showed  that  express  could  be 
carried  on  government  owned  railroads  for  one-third 
what  the  public  was  now  paying  for  this  service.  I 


then  proposed  to  buy  the  roads  and  pay  for  them  by 
using  Government  bonds,  a  sum  equal  to  their  actual 
physical  value.  But  since  then  the  conduct  of  the  rail 
road  managers  has  been  such  that  there  is  no  justifica 
tion  whatever  in  buying  the  roads.  They  should  be 
taken  over  as  the  highways  of  the  United  States  and 
operated  for  the  general  welfare  and  their  stocks  and 
bonds  cancelled  and  destroyed.  This  is  not  confisca 
tion  or  robbery,  it  is  restoring  stolen  property  to  its 
rightful  owners  and  it  would  be  well  to  put  the  thieves 
in  jail  so  that  they  cannot  steal  something  else. 


100 


VIII.     LABOR 

I  have  tried  in  the  preceding  chapters  to  describe 
some  of  the  more  important  economic  changes  that 
have  occurred  in  the  United  States  during  the  past 
fifty  years.  All  of  them  relate  to  business,  to  the 
rich,  the  powerful.  The  control  of  the  banks;  the 
right  to  issue  money;  the  tariff-privileges  enjoyed 
by  the  favored  few;  the  organization  of  the  trusts, 
and  the  manipulation  of  the  railroads — these  were 
the  outstanding  features  of  a  system  that  gave  prop 
erty-holders  first  choice  in  all  of  the  important  eco 
nomic  relations  of  life. 

A  visitor  to  the  United  States,  during  these  years, 
would  have  supposed  that  the  workers  did  not  count 
for  much,  one  way  or  the  other,  but  that  the  very  heart 
and  soul  of  existence  consisted  in  putting  more  money 
into  the  hands  of  the  rich.  Indeed,  this  was  the  atti 
tude  taken  by  a  majority  of  my  colleagues  in  both 
houses  of  Congress. 

The  whole  trend  of  legislation  was  toward  the  grant-  ,< 
ing  of  privilege.  The  lawyers,  who  composed  both 
houses  of  Congress,  were  representatives  of  the  busi 
ness  interests.  They  never  asked  the  question :  "What 
does  the  public  welfare  demand?"  Instead,  their  one 
thought  was :  "What  do  my  clients  want  ?"  Therefore, 
their  actions  were  always  directed  toward  the  protec 
tion  of  property  and  never  toward  the  protection  of  the 
workers. 

Perhaps  I  can  best  illustrate  this  point  by  reference 
to  an  experience  which  I  had  with  a  bill  requiring  the 
railroads  to  report  accidents. 

During  the  whole  twelve  years  of  my  service  in  the 
Senate,  only  one  bill,  even  remotely  in  the  interests  of 
labor,  became  a  law.  All  of  the  others,  and  there  were 
hundreds  of  them,  were  either  reported  from  the  com 
mittees  adversely,  or  not  reported  at  all.  If  reported 
and  passed  through  the  house  where  they  originated, 
they  were  always  killed  in  the  other  body.  If  a  bill 

101 


originated  h*  the  Senate  and  passed  the  Senate,  the 
committee  in  the  House  would  never  report  it.  If  a  bill 
passed  the  House  and  came  to  the  Senate,  the  Senate 
committee  would  not  report  it ;  or,  if  the  committee  did 
make  a  report,  it  was  done  in  such  a  manner  that  the 
bill  was  sure  to  receive  no  serious  consideration.  Al 
though  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  always  had 
its  lobbyists  at  work,  and  there  were  other  labor  organ 
izations  that  had  their  representatives  urging  the  pas 
sage  of  legislation,  the  clever  manipulation  of  bills  by 
bodies  of  both  houses  offered  a  guarantee  that  nothing 
definite  or  effective  would  ever  be  accomplished. 

Finally,  during  the  last  year  of  my  service  in  the 
Senate,  a  bill  passed  the  House  requiring  railroads  to 
file  with  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  monthly 
reports  of  accidents — their  causes  and  the  names  of 
the  persons  injured.  The  bill  was  referred  to  the  Com 
mittee  on  Interstate  Commerce. 

Late  in  the  session,  the  representative  of  the  rail 
road  men,  who  had  been  working  for  a  year  to  have 
this  bill  passed,  came  to  me  and  said  he  could  not  get 
the  Senate  Committee  to  report  the  bill.  He  asked  me 
to  take  charge  of  it  and  see  if  I  could  not  secure  its 
passage.  This  was  some  time  in  January,  1901,  and 
my  term  as  a  Senator  expired  on  the  4th  of  March. 

I  asked  him  to  describe  in  detail  the  steps  that  he 
had  taken  to  secure  its  passage.  He  gave  me  the  in 
formation,  and  concluded  with  the  observation  that,  in 
his  judgment,  the  Senate  did  not  intend  to  pass  the 
bill.  I  gathered  that  he  came  to  me  as  a  sort  of  forlorn 
last  hope. 

I  finally  told  him  that  I  would  take  charge  of  the  bill, 
provided  it  was  understood  that  I  had  full  charge,  and 
I  promised  him  that  I  would  make  it  exceedingly  inter 
esting  for  the  Interstate  Commerce  Committee  if  it  did 
not  allow  the  bill  to  pass.  I  told  him,  furthermore, 
that  it  would  be  a  hot  fight  in  which  some  bitter  enemies 
would  be  made  for  all  who  supported  the  bill.  I  further 
told  him  that  my  method  would  discourage  him,  but 

102 


that,  in  my  judgment,  it  was  the  only  method  that  had 
even  a  remote  chance  of  success.  If  I  would  have  his 
full  support  under  these  circumstances,  and  without 
any  interference,  I  was  willing  to  take  the  bill.  To  this 
proposition  he  heartily  agreed. 

I  then  went  before  the  Committee  on  Interstate  Com 
merce  at  its  next  session  and  gave  vigorous  reasons 
why  the  bill  should  be  reported.*  The  railroad  attor 
neys  on  the  committee — Wolcott  of  Colorado  and 
others — protested  that  the  reports  of  the  railroads 
would  be  examined  by  shyster  lawyers  and  used  to 
begin  suits  for  damage.  I  said :  "That  is  not  the  reason 

*  The  bill  was  worded  as  follows :  "An  Act  requiring  com 
mon  carriers  engaged  in  interstate  commerce  to  make  full  re 
port  of  all  accidents  to  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission. 

"BE  IT  ENACTED  BY  THE  SENATE  AND  HOUSE  OF 
REPRESENTATIVES  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AM 
ERICA  IN  CONGRESS  ASSEMBLED: 

"It  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  general  manager,  superintendent 
or  other  proper  officer  of  common  carrier  engaged  in  interstate 
commerce  by  railroad  to  make  to  the  Interstate  Commerce  Com 
mission,  at  its  office  in  Washington,  District  of  Columbia,  a 
monthly  report,  under  oath,  of  all  collisions  of  trains  or  where 
any  train  or  part  of  a  train  accidentally  leaves  the  track,  and  of 
accidents  which  may  occur  to  its  passengers  or  employes  while 
in  the  service  of  such  common  carrier  and  actually  on  duty, 
which  report  shall  state  the  nature  and  causes  thereof,  and  the 
circumstances  connected  therewith. 

"Sec.  2.  That  any  common  carrier  failing  to  make  such 
report  within  thirty  days  after  the  end  of  any  month  shall  be 
deemed  guilty  of  a  misdemeanor  and,  upon  conviction  thereof 
by  a  court  of  competent  jurisdiction,  shall  be  punished  by  a 
fine  of  not  more  than  one  hundred  dollars  for  each  and  every 
offense  and  for  every  day  during  which  it  shall  fail  to  make 
such  report  after  the  time  herein  specified  for  making  the  same. 

"Sec.  3.  That  neither  said  report  nor  any  part  thereof  shall 
be  admitted  as  evidence  or  used  for  any  purpose  against  such 
railroad  so  making  such  report  in  any  suit  or  action  for  dam 
ages  growing  out  of  any  matter  mentioned  in  said  report. 

"Sec.  4.  That  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  is  au 
thorized  to  prescribe  for  such  common  carriers  a  method  and 
form  for  making  the  reports  in  the  foreging  section  provided. 

"Aproved  March  3,  1901." 

103 


,  why  you  oppose  this  bill.  Your  clients  have  ordered 
you  to  kill  this  bill  because  they,  the  railroads,  are  not 
obeying  the  law  as  to  safety  appliances.  It  costs 
money  to  stop  killing,  so  they  refuse  to  obey  the  lav- 
while  they  continue  to  kill.  You  know  as  well  as  I  do 
that  more  people,  both  employees  and  passengers,  are 
killed  on  American  railroads  than  by  all  the  other  rail 
roads  in  the  world.  An  amendment  to  the  bill  will 
prevent  the  report  being  used  against  the  roads  in 
damage  suits."  The  next  day  the  Committee  reported 
the  bill  with  four  or  five  amendments,  any  one  of  which 
would  have  made  the  law,  if  passed,  practically  inoper 
ative.  I  called  up  the  bill  for  passage,  and  .showed  to 
the  Senate  the  meaning  of  the  amendments  offered, 
with  the  result  that  I  had  the  first  amendment  rejected 
by  the  Senate  after  a  long  discussion  and  bitter  strug 
gle  on  the  floor.  Thereupon  the  chairman  of  the  Com 
mittee  arose  in  his  seat  and  moved  that  the  bill  be  re 
committed  to  the  Committee,  which  is  a  motion  that  is 
always  agreed  to  and,  therefore,  the  bill  was  recom 
mitted  to  what  the  railroad  lawyers  .supposed  would  be 
its  graveyard. 

At  the  next  meeting  the  Committee  on  Interstate 
Commerce  did  not  act  upon  the  bill  nor  report  it  back 
to  the  Senate.  I,  therefore,  introduced  a  resolution  in 
the  Senate  to  discharge  the  Committee  from  further 
consideration  of  the  bill  and  place  it  immediately  upon 
the  calendar.  This  led  to  a  filibuster  debate  which  was 
intended  to  wear  out  the  session.  Whereupon  the 
chairman  of  the  Committee  arose  in  his  seat  and  said 
that  if  I  would  withdraw  my  motion  he  would  call  a 
meeting  the  next  day  and  would  report  the  bill.  So 
the  bill  was  reported  from  the  Committee  the  next  day 
with  amendments  which  wholly  destroyed  its  original 
purpose.  I  moved  the  immediate  consideration  of  the 
bill  and  I  stated  in  the  Senate  that  I  had  been  a  mem 
ber  of  that  body  for  twelve  years  and  that  during  that 
time  no  labor  bill  had  passed  both  Houses  and  become 
a  law;  that  this  sort  of  a  record  could  not  be  justified 

104 


or  defended  by  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  espe 
cially  should  Congress  defeat  the  present  measure.  I 
also  stated  that  the  railroads  wanted  to  defeat  this 
bill  because,  while  the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
had  enacted  laws  compelling  the  railroads  to  use  certain 
safety  appliances  upon  their  trains,  appliances  which 
cost  money — the  railroads  were  not  using  these  appli 
ances,  with  the  result  that  many  accidents  occurred 
which  could  be  traced  directly  to  the  absence  of  these 
appliances.  The  bill  was  particularly  obnoxious  be 
cause  its  passage  would  make  a  public  record  of  these 
facts.  I  succeeded,  therefore,  in  defeating  all  of  the 
amendments  but  the  one  which  provided  that  the  re 
ports  .should  not  be  used  in  court.  Thereupon  the 
chairman  of  the  Committee  moved  to  recommit  the  bill 
to  the  Committee. 

The  next  day  I  offered  a  resolution  to  discharge  the 
Committee  from  further  consideration  of  the  measure 
and  place  it  upon  the  calendar.  The  chairman  of  the 
Committee  immediately  arose  in  the  Senate  and  said  he 
would  call  an  extra  session  for  the  next  morning  and 
would  report  the  bill  if  I  would  withdraw  my  motion, 
which,  of  course,  I  did.  The  next  day  the  bill  was  re 
ported  with  the  same  amendment  with  regard  to  not 
using  the  reports  against  the  railroads  and  with  an 
other  amendment  destroying  the  real  intent  of  the  bill. 
I  defeated  the  pernicious  amendment  in  the  Senate  and 
the  railroad  attorneys  allowed  the  bill  to  pass  with  the 
amendment  prohibiting  the  use  of  the  reports  against 
the  railroads  in  any  lawsuit. 

The  session  was  nearing  a  close  and  the  opponents 
of  the  bill  thought  they  could  prevent  it  from  going 
through  the  House  of  Representatives  without  amend 
ments.  The  Speaker  of  the  House  was  Henderson  of 
Iowa,  a  one-legged  soldier,  veteran  of  the  Civil  War,  an 
honest  man — a  rare  quality  in  a  Speaker  of  the  House 
— whose  sympathy  was  with  the  men  who  toil.  The" 
moment  the  bill  passed  the  Senate,  I  went  over  to  the 
House,  for  I  had  advised  with  Henderson  several  times 

105 


about  the  matter,  and  told  him  that  I  had  got  the  rail 
road  bill  through  with  an  amendment  which  would  not 
affect  the  working  of  the  law,  but  that  if  the  amended 
bill  was  sent  to  the  House  Committee,  there  would  be 
delay  and  the  session  would  be  over  before  action  could 
be  taken.  I  therefore  asked  Henderson  to  have  the 
House  concur  in  the  amendment  as  soon  as  it  came 
over,  and  have  the  bill  immediately  enrolled  and  re 
turned  to  the  Senate. 

Henderson  asked  me  who  had  charge  of  the  bill  on 
the  floor  of  the  House.  I  told  him  the  name  of  the 
member  and  when  that  member  arose  and  stated  to  the; 
House  that  the  Senate  had  passed  House  Bill  10,302, 
with  an  amendment,  the  Speaker  immediately  said : 
"The  motion  is  upon  agreeing  to  the  amendment  ol: 
the  Senate  to  House  Bill  10,302.  All  those  in  favor 
say  'Aye,'  and  all  those  opposed  say  'No.'  The  ayes 
have  it." 

A  day  passed,  and  I  heard  nothing  from  the  bill.  I 
then  went  to  the  Clerk  of  the  House,  and  he  told  me 
that  he  had  had  the  bill  enrolled  and  had  sent  it  over 
to  the  Senate.  I,  therefore,  returned  to  the  Senate, 
and,  after  waiting  a  day  and  finding  that  the  bill  did 
not  come,  I  stated  in  the  Senate  that  the  bill  had  been 
lost. 

(Congressional  Record,  Vol.  344,  p,  3533,  56th  Con 
gress,  2d  session,  March  2,  1901.) 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "I  am  informed  that  the  Senate 
amendments  were  accepted  by  the  House,  and  that  the 
bill  was  enrolled  and  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  messen 
ger  to  bring  to  the  Senate,  and  on  the  way,  or  some 
where,  it  has  been  lost.  In  other  words,  there  seems 
to  be  an  effort  to  steal  the  bill." 

Mr.  LODGE :  "In  connection  with  what  the  Senator 
from  North  Dakota  is  saying,  I  desire  to  say  that  I 
have  been  engaged  in  trying  to  find  that  bill.  My  at 
tention  was  called  to  the  fact  that  it  was  lost.  It  was 
announced  to  the  Senate  that  the  House  had  concurred 
in  the  amendments  of  the  Senate." 

106 


Mr.  PETTIGREW:    'The  bill  was  enrolled." 

Mr.  LODGE:  "The  bill  was  enrolled  in  the  House, 
is  was  signed  by  the  Speaker,  according  to  the  records 
of  the  House,  Mr.  Browning,  and  that  is  the  last  of  it. 
Mr.  Browning  says  he  delivered  it  here.  There  is  no 
record  of  it  here  at  all.  It  cannot  be  found.  I  have 
been  personally  to  the  room  of  the  Committee  on  En 
rolled  Bills  and  looked  over  the  bunch  of  bills  that  was 
sent,  and  the  bill  is  not  there.  I  do  not  know  what  can 
be  done,  but  the  bill  has  disappeared  between  the  two 
houses." 

Mr.  SPOONER:   "Can  it  not  be  re-enrolled?" 

Mr.  LODGE :  "The  Speaker,  I  am  told,  on  one  occa 
sion,  when  a  bill  had  disappeared  in  that  way,  declined 
to  sign  the  bill  again.  It  has  disappeared  between  the 
two  houses." 

Mr.  SPOONER :  "It  cannot  be,  if  a  bill  has  been  lost 
before  it  has  been  signed  by  the  officer  of  the  other 
house  and  that,  that  Congress  is  powerless  about  it. 
Both  houses  have  passed  it." 

Mr.  LODGE :   "Certainly  they  have." 

Mr.  SPOONER:  "I  do  not  see  any  reason  why  it 
cannot  be  re-enrolled." 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "If  the  bill  is  lost,  it  is  lost  on 
purpose.  There  is  no  question  about  that.  That  might 
do  for  some  half-civilized  community,  but  for  the  Sen 
ate  of  the  United  States  it  is  a  pretty  tough  propo 
sition." 

After  some  discussion,  the  Senate  passed  a  resolution 
which  requested  the  House  to  have  the  bill  re-enrolled, 
signed  by  the  Speaker  and  sent  over  to  the  Senate. 

There  was  nothing  further  for  the  Senate  to  do,  so  I 
resolved  to  take  the  matter  into  my  own  hands.  I  went 
over  to  the  House  of  Representatives,  taking  with  me 
Louis  Kimball,  a  Civil  War  veteran,  who  had  been  ap 
pointed,  at  my  suggestion,  messenger  to  one  of  the 
Senate  Committees.  On  the  way  over  to  the  House  I 
told  Kimball  what  had  happened,  and  then  explained 
my  plan  to  him.  I  proposed  to  go  to  the  Clerk  of  the 

107 


House  and  ask  him  which  of  his  assistants  had  en 
rolled  the  railroad  bill.  When  he  told  me,  I  was  to 
attract  the  attention  of  this  assistant  while  Kimbal] 
went  through  his  desk. 

The  plan  worked  like  a  charm.  McConnell  was  Clerk 
of  the  House — a  Republican  from  Pennsylvania,  who 
could  be  relied  upon  by  the  agents  of  big  business  to 
render  faithful  service.  I  knew  him  well.  When  .' 
reached  his  desk  I  asked  which  of  the  clerks  had  en 
rolled  the  railroad  bill.  He  indicated  the  man,  and 
started  toward  him. 

"No,"  I  interposed,  "call  him  over  here."  I  stood 
stock  still  till  the  clerk  came. 

While  I  engaged  him  in  conversation  about  the  bill, 
Kimball  went  through  his  desk  and,  in  the  back  end  of 
the  top  drawer  of  the  desk,  he  found  the  bill,  enrolled 
and  ready  to  be  transmitted  to  the  Senate. 

"McConnell,"  said  I  to  the  Chief  Clerk,  "you  know 
what  this  means.  If  that  bill  is  not  over  in  the  Senate 
by  the  time  I  arrive  there,  I  will  ask  for  the  floor  an! 
recite  to  the  Senate  the  circumstances  under  which  we 
discovered  that  bill." 

Needless  to  say,  the  bill  was  in  the  Senate  chamber 
before  I  got  back.  It  was  signed  at  once  and  sent  to 
the  President,  who  signed  it  on  March  3,  1901,  the  day 
before  my  term  as  United  States  Senator  expired. 

On  the  day  previous,  Senator  Lodge  made  the  follow 
ing  explanation  (March  2, 1901,  p.  3537) : 

"Mr.  President,  I  desire  to  say  a  word  in  regard  to 
the  lost  bill  with  respect  to  which  we  passed  a  resolu 
tion  not  long  ago.  I  am  informed  while  the  debate  was 
in  progress  on  the  North  Carolina  Claim  Bill  that  the 
bill  had  been  found  in  a  desk  in  the  enrolling  room  of 
the  House  of  Representatives.  It  seems  to  have  slipped 
into  the  drawer  of  the  desk.  I  wish  to  say  this  in  jus 
tice  to  the  clerks  and  officers  of  the  Senate.  It  never 
came  here." 

That  is  the  story  of  the  one  labor  measure  that,  to 
my  knowledge,  passed  both  houses  of  Congress  and 

108 


became  a  law  during  the  twelve  years  that  I  was  in 
the  Senate.  Every  means,  fair  and  foul,  was  em 
ployed  to  kill  it,  and  it  was  rather  by  good  luck  than 
anything  else  that  we  found  the  bill  and  got  it  through 
in  the  closing  hours  of  the  Session. 

During  the  last  year  I  was  in  the  Senate,  that  is, 
from  1899  to  March  4,  1901,  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  enacted  laws  upon  every  conceivable 
subject,  which  fill  a  volume  of  more  than  2,000  pages 
and  these  laws  were  enacted  by  the  attorneys  of  the 
property  interests  of  this  country  who  had  complete 
control  of  both  houses,  and  most  of  these  laws  were 
privileges  to  the  owners  of  stolen  property  to  exploit 
the  people  of  the  United  States. 

So  much  for  the  standing  of  labor  before  Congress 
— it  had  no  standing  at  all.  And  why?  Partly  be 
cause  of  the  lack  of  organization;  partly  because  of 
the  ignorance  and  weakness  of  the  leaders ;  partly 
because  labor  can  hope  to  gain  little  or  nothing  at 
the  hands  of  a  Congress  composed  of  corporation  law 
yers  and  other  representatives  of  the  business  inter 
ests.  Perhaps  a  word  writh  regard  to  my  relations 
with  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  wrill  help  to 
make  my  meaning  clear. 

I  became  acquainted  with  Samuel  Gompers,  Presi 
dent  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  many 
years  ago.  At  that  time,  I  supposed  that  he  repre 
sented  the  labor  unions  of  the  United  States  in  the 
interests  of  the  toiling  masses,  and  that  that  interest 
extended  to  the  public  in  general.  But  I  very  soon 
found  that  Samuel  Gompers  and  the  American  Fed 
eration  of  Labor  were  a  combination  something  in 
the  nature  of  a  trust,  organized,  even  before  the 
great  industrial  combinations  were  formed,  for  the 
purpose  of  exploiting  everybody  except  the  members 
of  their  own  combination-  I  found  that  Gompers  was 
standing  in  with  the  employers  of  labor  and  under- 

109 


taking  to  get  all  he  could  for  his  crowd,  without  re 
ference  to  the  general  welfare. 

On  August  8,  1911,  Mr.  Almont,  one  of  the  organ 
izers  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  came  to 
me  at  Sioux  Falls,  S.  D.,  and  said  that  he  had  re 
ceived  a  letter  from  Samuel  Gompers,  or  from  the 
office  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  request 
ing  Almont  to  secure  a  letter  from  me  giving  my 
opinion  regarding  the  trade  union  movement.  I 
thereupon  wrote  Gompers  the  following  letter: 

"Sioux  Falls,  August  8,  1911. 
"Samuel  Gompers, 

"President  American  Federation  of  Labor. 
"Dear  Sir: 

"F.  C.  Almont,  one  of  your  organizers,  has 
asked  me  to  write  you  and  give  an  opinion 
with  regard  to  the  Trade  Union  Movement. 

"The  Trade  Union  should  be  universal  and 
include  every  man  who  toils,  not  only  in  the 
factory,  but  on  the  farm.  The  strike  and  boy 
cott  are  but  crude  and  savage  and  warlike 
remedies,  and  I  am  sure  labor  will  never  re 
ceive  what  it  earns  until  the  land  and  imple 
ments  of  production  are  co-operatively  or  pub 
licly  owned. 

"Capital  cannot  exist  without  labor  and  is 
entirely  dependent  upon  labor,  while  labor  is 
independent  of  capital,  can  and  does  exist 
without  it.  Yet  under  the  present  system  of 
production  capital  exploits  labor,  and  takes 
more  than  two-thirds  of  the  earnings  of  labor, 
and,  until  the  system  is  changed,  labor  will 
struggle  in  vain  to  secure  what  it  produces. 
Yours  truly, 

"R.  F.  PETTIGREW." 

During  the  fall  of  1911,  I  visited  Washington  and 
called  upon  Gompers.  He  brought  up  the  subject  of 

110 


my  letter,  said  that  he  had  received  and  read  it  and 
that  it  was  an  impertinence  to  write  him  such  a  letter. 
He  began,  in  a  rather  excited  way,  to  announce  that  it 
was  socialism  and  then  to  attack  the  socialists  and  the 
socialist  doctrine.  That  interested  me  very  much,  so  I 
stayed  and  talked  with  him  for  a  long  time  and  got  a 
very  fair  insight  into  his  theory  of  the  labor  movement. 
Later,  I  continued  the  investigation  and  had  at  least 
one  meeting  with  four  or  five  of  the  principal  union 
officers  at  the  headquarters  of  the  American  Federa 
tion  of  Labor  at  Washington. 

After  I  had  thoroughly  examined  the  American  Fed 
eration  of  Labor  and  its  processes  and  purposes,  and 
had  ascertained  beyond  question  the  relation  Mr.  Gom- 
pers  held  with  the  capitalistic  and  exploiting  classes, 
on  December  8,  1916,  I  wrote  the  following  letter  to 
Gompers : 

"December  8,  1916. 
"Hon  Samuel  Gompers, 

"President  American  Federation  of  Labor, 

"Washington,  D.  C. 
"Dear  Sir: 

"The  position  of  the  American  Federation 
of  Labor  as  represented  by  you  is  that  of 
standing  in  with  the  corporations  who  employ 
labor  to  secure  a  part  of  what  labor  is  entitled 
to  and  make  the  corporations  divide  with  or 
ganized  labor  what  they  take  from  the  public. 

"You  seem  to  be  ignorant  of  the  purpose 
and  objects  of  the  Civic  Federation  and  are 
getting  acquainted  with  Professor  Commons. 
The  only  way  to  make  a  federation  of  labor 
effective  is  to  combine  all  those  who  are  pro 
ducers  of  wealth  in  a  political  organization 
and  take  charge  of  the  government  and  then 
administer  the  government  in  the  interest  of 
the  rights  of  man.  It  is  now  administered  in 
the  interests  of  the  rights  of  property  and  ad- 
Ill 


ministered  by  the  men  who  did  not  produce 
any  of  the  property,  but  who  have  stolen  it 
from  those  who  did  produce  it. 

"I  am  enclosing  you  copy  of  my  article  on 
the  distribution  of  wealth  in  the  United 
States,  also  copy  of  my  letter  to  you  of  August 
8,  1911. 

"I  very  much  hope  that  Congress  will  pass 
the  Compulsory  Arbitration  laws,  if  that  is 
necessary  to  open  your  eyes  and  the  eyes  of 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor  as  to  what 
is  going  on.  Commons  is  right — the  Supreme 
Court  will  hold  that  it  is  constitutional. 

"They  sent  Dred  Scott  back  to  .slavery  and 
if  they  will  now  hold  that  organized  labor  can 
be  forced  to  work,  whether  they  want  to  or 
not,  and  thus  send  it  back  to  slavery,  you  will 
wake  up  and  take  possession  of  the  Govern 
ment  and  Congress  and  also  of  the  courts. 

"Right  after  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  Lin 
coln  made  a  speech  at  Cincinnati,  using  the 
following  language  with  reference  to  the  Su 
preme  Court: 

"  The  people  of  these  United  States  are  the 
rightful  masters  of  both  Congress  and  the 
courts,  not  to  overthrow  the  Constitution,  but 
to  overthrow  the  men  who  pervert  the  Consti 
tution/ 

"I  have  wondered  if  organized  labor  would 
still  refuse  to  affiliate  with  the  other  laborers 
—would  finally  abandon  their  position  as  the 
aristocracy  of  labor — that  of  looking  with  con 
tempt  upon  their  fellow-workers.  I  wondered 
if  the  time  will  come  when  you  get  sufficiently 
jolted  .so  that  you  will  organize  a  labor  party 
composed  of  farmers  and  other  producers  of 
wealth  and  take  charge  of  the  Government  of 
the  United  States  and  administer  it  in  the  in- 

112 


terests  of  humanity  instead  of  continuing  to 
administer  it  in  the  interest  of  property — 
stolen  property — with  organized  labor  con 
stantly  trying  to  compromise. 

"Your  position  and  the  position  of  organ 
ized  labor  has  been  a  matter  of  great  aston 
ishment  to  me  for  years  and  I  very  much  hope 
that  they  will  pass  the  compulsory  arbitration 
law,  for  the  extreme  measure  is  necessary  to 
jolt  organized  labor  off  from  the  pedestal  upon 
which  it  has  been  roosting  on  to  the  ground 
among  its  fellow-men. 

"Yours  very  truly, 

"R.  F.  PETTIGREW." 

Gompers  had  always  insisted  that  labor  should  not 
go  into  politics,  but  that  they  should  select  from  the 
two  old  parties  the  good  men  and  vote  for  them  with 
out  reference  as  to  whether  they  are  Democrats  or 
Republicans,  knowing  full  well  that  that  policy  would 
only  result  in  perpetuating  the  system  of  universal  ex 
ploitation,  of  which  he  was  one  of  the  representatives. 

The  people  who  produce  the  wealth  and  do  the  work 
in  the  United  States  are  at  least  two-thirds  of  the  pop 
ulation.  A  little  over  2,000,000  of  the  American  people 
own  all  of  the  wealth  that  the  workers  have  produced, 
having  taken  it  from  the  producers  through  special 
privileges,  secured  by  every  conceivable  species  of  chi 
canery,  bribery  and  corruption.  Whenever  the  masters 
meet  an  opponent  who  exposes  their  methods  and  prac 
tices,  and  protests  against  the  present  economic  sys 
tem,  they  first  undertake  to  buy  him  by  agreeing  to 
divide  with  him  the  favors  which  they  receive.  Failing 
in  that,  they  undertake  to  destroy  him.  No  man  can 
succeed  for  any  length  of  time  politically  under  our 
system  if  he  exposes  the  methods  of  the  corporations 
who  own  all  of  the  great  natural  resources  and  artifi 
cial  facilities  of  the  United  States. 

113 


Soon  after  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  was 
organized  and  Mr.  Gompers  became  its  chief,  the  inter 
ests  took  him  into  "camp,"  as  they  express  it,  and  for 
mulated  for  him  the  arguments  and  program  by  which 
he  was  to  handle  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  so 
that  it  would  be  an  adjunct  of  the  present  economic 
system.  Of  course  .strikes  were  permitted  where  the 
men  represented  by  Gompers  insisted  upon  having 
more  pay  than  some  of  the  employers  were  willing  to 
give.  Strikes  like  those  of  the  steel  workers  in  1919- 
1920  might  come  and  go.  It  was  all  one  to  the  big  fel 
lows.  But  whenever  the  .strike  became  so  widespread 
as  to  seem  dangerous,  or  when  the  demands  of  the  men 
were  so  reasonable  that  they  made  a  wide  public  ap 
peal,  the  smallest  possible  concessions  were  made,  gen 
erally  through  the  leaders  of  the  strikers  to  the  men. 

,      Before  making  concessions,  however,  the  great  com 
binations  would  undertake  to  bribe  the  leaders;  would 
/  hire  private  detectives  and  use  force,  if  necessary,  to 
beat  the  strikers  into  submission.    In  order  to  justify 
\   the  use  of  force  in  the  eyes  of  the  public,  they  would 
j   send  their  secret  agents  among  the  strikers,  advocat 
ing  some  act  of  violence  which  they  represented  as 
dangerous  to  the  welfare  of  the  workers.    They  would 
talk  violently  and  excite  the  men  and  advise  bomb- 
throwing  and  even  murder.    Sometimes  they  even  per 
petrated  such  outrages.     Generally  the  assaults  were 
against  property,  and  of  course  immediately  the  army 
or  the  police,  or  both,  were  called  in  to  restore  law  and 
order. 

From  a  close  observation  of  the  operations  of  the 

American  Federation  of  Labor,  as  conducted  by  Mr. 

Gompers,  I  am  satisfied  that  he  was  a  party  to  the 

methods  employed  for  breaking  great  strikes,  and  that 

!    the   strikes   advised   by   him   were   manipulated  very 

I    much  more  in  the  interests  of  the  capitalists  than  in 

the  interests  of  labor.    And  that  is  why  I  wrote  in  a 

second  letter  to  Mr.  Gompers : 

114 


"The  only  way  to  make  a  Federation  of 
Labor  effective  is  to  combine  all  those  who  are 
producers  of  wealth  in  a  political  organization 
and  take  charge  of  the  Government,  and  then 
administer  the  Government  in  the  interests  of 
the  rights  of  property  and  administered  by 
the  men  who  did  not  produce  any  of  the  prop 
erty,  but  who  have  stolen  it  from  those  who 
did  produce  it." 

Labor  has  no  standing  in  Congress.  Its  acknowl 
edged  leaders — in  conjunction  with  the  masters  of  in 
dustry  and  finance — tie  labor  hand  and  foot.  The 
American  Federation  of  Labor  has  been  in  existence 
forty  years  (since  1881).  During  the  period  of  its 
power  the  position  of  the  American  worker  has  be 
come,  on  the  whole,  less,  rather  than  more,  advanta 
geous.  The  big  rewards,  the  great  winnings  have  gone 
to  the  owners,  while  the  workers  have  received  only 
the  crumbs. 

Labor  produces  the  world's  wealth.  The  vast  major 
ity  of  the  American  people  work  for  their  living.  Civil 
ization  is  built  upon  labor,  and  labor  is  civilization.  Yet 
the  public  life  of  the  United  States  is  so  organized  that 
the  workers  receive  scant  consideration,  while  every  at 
tention  is  paid  to  the  owners  of  the  property. 

All  our  legislation  has  been  aimed  to  increase  the 
power  and  promote  the  interests  of  those  who  have, 
as  against  those  who  produce.  The  great  question  then 
that  is  presented  to  the  laboring  people  of  the  United 
States  is: 

Shall  the  rights  of  man  be  superior  to  the  rights 
of  property? 

Inasmuch  as  all  property  is  created  by  labor,  if  the 
rights  of  man  are  safeguarded  by  legislation,  no  laws 
will  be  required  to  protect  the  rights  of  property  in  the 
hands  of  the  men  who  produce  it,  but  under  our  pres 
ent  system  the  laborer  who  produces  the  wealth  has 
none  of  it.  He  is  exploited  out  of  it  by  the  landlord,  by 

115 


the  corporation  which  employs  him,  by  the  corpora 
tions  which  furnish  him  public  utilities,  by  the  insur 
ance  companies  and  trust  companies  which  charge 
three  times  what  it  is  worth  to  do  the  business,  and 
by  the  general  system  of  combinations  of  the  parasites 
and  idlers  of  society,  who  get  away  from  the  producers 
of  wealth  what  their  labor  has  created. 

If  forty  laboring  men  were  shipwrecked  upon  a  dis 
tant  island  in  the  ocean,  which  was  practically  never 
frequented  by  ships  of  commerce,  and  there  were  about 
one  thousand  acres  of  fertile  land  upon  the  island  and 
only  one  spring  of  pure  water,  and  one  of  their  num 
ber  should  rush  at  once  to  the  spring  and  the  thousand, 
acres  of  land  and  claim  it  as  his  property  because  he 
saw  it  first  and  insist  that  all  the  others  should  pay 
him  a  portion  of  their  products  before  they  would  be 
permitted  to  raise  food  upon  the  land  or  to  drink  water 
from  the  spring,  the  other  thirty-nine  people  would  be 
justified  in  taking  it  away  from  him,  and  proceeding 
to  exercise  their  natural  rights,  giving,  of  course,  the; 
greedy  usurper  the  same  right  which  they  all  possessed 
—that  of  going  to  work  and  earning,  with  the  rest  of 
them,  his  own  living. 

Of  course,  the  exploiters  of  labor  are  always  talking 
about  the  dignity  of  labor  and  extolling  the  laborers, 
and  the  Labor  Day  orators — men  who  have  never  done 
a  day's  work  in  their  life  or  produced  a  dollar's  worth 
of  wealth  of  the  country — will  speak  of  the  laborers 
in  the  highest  terms. 

Why  then  should  not  the  producers  of  wealth  organ 
ize  and  take  possession  of  the  Government  and  run  it 
in  the  interests  of  the  workers  rather  than  to  have  it 
run  in  the  interest  of  the  idle  few,  as  at  present  ? 

It  seems  to  me  that  it  is  about  time  we  abandoned 
the  barbarous  doctrine  of  "the  devil  take  the  hind 
most,"  and  that,  instead  of  universal  selfishness  and 
competition,  we  could  found  a  civilization  based  upon 
the  rights  of  man  in  the  interest  of  the  general  welfare 

116 


for  all  the  people.  Such  a  step  would  raise  the  mental, 
physical,  and  moral  standard  of  the  population,  and 
would  be  the  beginning  of  a  new  stage  of  civilization. 
This  work  must  be  done  by  the  laboring  classes.  It 
will  never  be  done  by  the  beneficiaries  of  a  special 
privilege  economic  system  now  existing  in  the  United 
States. 


117 


IX.     PLUTOCRACY 

Bit  by  bit  the  evidence  accumulated  under  my  eyes 
until  it  constituted  a  mountain  of  irrefutable  proof 
— the  public  domain  .seized  and  exploited  by  the  inter 
ests  and  for  their  private  profit;  the  concentration  of 
power  in  the  hands  of  the  bankers ;  their  manipulation 
of  money  for  their  own  benefit;  the  tariff,  used  as  a 
favor  granted  by  Congress  for  the  few  to  plunder  the 
many;  the  wanton  and  reckless  creation  of  trusts  and 
aggregations  of  capital;  the  vast  strength  of  the  rail 
roads  and  other  public  utility  monopolies ;  the  ferocious 
indifference  of  these  interests  to  the  public  welfare  and 
to  the  well  being  of  the  masses  of  the  people — as  I  sur 
veyed  this  evidence  I  could  form  only  one  possible  con 
clusion — that  the  power  over  American  public  life, 
whether  economic,  social  or  political,  rested  in  the 
hands  of  the  rich. 

It  is  said  that  in  the  past,  in  the  days  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  when  a  wealthy  Roman  wished  to  build  a  villa 
he  purchased  the  right  to  tax  and  govern  a  conquered 
province  in  Asia,  and  returned  to  Rome  to  enjoy  his 
fortune.  But  when  an  American  millionaire  wishes  to 
build  a  villa,  or  buy  a  title  in  Europe,  he  purchases  a 
tariff  privilege  from  the  Congress  of  the  United  States, 
or  corrupts  a  legislature  or  a  city  council  and  secures 
a  franchise,  and  proceeds  to  rob  his  neighbors. 

I  am  of  the  opinion  that  the  Roman  way  was  the 
best 

Plutocracy  is  a  word  that  means  rule  by  and  for  the 
rich.  The  United  States  is  a  country  run  by  and  for 
the  rich.  Therefore,  it  is  a  plutocracy. 

The  rich  few  own  the  United  States.  The  rich  few 
who  own  it  direct  its  public  policy.  For  years  these 
facts  have  been  apparent  to  the  discerning.  Today 
even  the  short-sighted  may  see  them  quite  plainly. 

Real  the  following  letter  which  Lincoln  wrote  to 
William  P.  Elkin  on  November  21,  1864: 

118 


"I  see  in  the  near  future  a  crisis  approach 
ing  that  unnerves  me  and  causes  me  to 
tremble  for  the  safety  of  my  country.  As  a 
result  of  war,  corporations  have  been  en 
throned,  and  an  era  of  corruption  in  high 
places  will  follow,  and  the  money  power  of  the 
country  will  endeavor  to  prolong  its  reign  by 
working  upon  the  prejudices  of  the  people 
until  all  the  wealth  is  aggregated  in  a  few 
hands  and  the  republic  is  destroyed.  I  feel,  at 
this  moment,  more  anxiety  for  the  safety  of 
my  country  than  ever  before,  even  in  the 
midst  of  war.  God  grant  that  my  suspicions 
may  prove  groundless." 

It  has  been  well  said  by  the  famous  English  writer 
and  philanthropist,  Mr.  Stead,  that  the  modern  busi 
ness  world  has  adopted  a  new  Golden  Rule  as  follows: 
"Dollars  and  dimes,  dollars  and  dimes ; 
To  be  without  money  is  the  worst  of  crimes. 
To  keep  all  you  get,  and  get  all  you  can, 
Is  the  first  and  the  last  and  the  whole  duty  of  man." 

That  this  Golden  Rule  has  been  adopted  by  the  so- 
called  business  men  of  the  United  States  is  evidenced 
by  what  has  been  accomplished  in  the  distribution  of 
the  wealth  produced  by  the  great  toiling  masses  of  this 
country. 

Recently  it  was  announced  that  John  D.  Rockefeller 
had  finally  succeeded  in  accumulating  one  billion  dol 
lars,  thus  making  him  the  richest  man  that  ever  lived. 

The  American  people  know  how  he  succeeded  in  accu 
mulating  this  vast  sum.  He  produced  none  of  it — he 
secured  all  of  it  by  exploiting  the  American  people  who 
had  produced  it. 

The  most  thrifty  of  the  American  people  do  well  if 
they  succeed  in  saving  $300  a  year  above  all  their  ex 
penses,  and  they  must  be  busy  every  day  in  the  year 
in  order  to  do  that.  To  accumulate  one  billion  dollars 
at  the  rate  of  $300  a  year — a  dollar  a  day  for  three  hun- 

119 


dred  working  days — a  man  would  have  to  live  and  labor 
3,333,333  years.  He  would  have  to  be  older  than  Methu 
selah — he  would  have  to  start  when  the  world  was  hot 
no  matter  where  he  ended  up. 

But  if  he  was  cunning,  unscrupulous  and  religious 
and  followed  Rockefeller's  method  of  robbing  his  fel 
low-men,  he  could  get  the  billion-dollar  prize  in  fifty 
years. 

One  billion  dollars  is  equivalent  to  the  earnings  of 
one  hundred  thousand  men  for  twenty  years,  provided 
they  earned  $500  apiece  each  year,  and  during  all  that 
time  leaving  nothing  out  for  sickness,  death  or  acci 
dent.  The  fact  that  Rockefeller  could  appropriate  the 
earnings  of  his  fellow-men  and  the  fact  that  he  did  do 
it  is  what  has  caused  the  social  and  economic  protest 
against  the  existing  system  and  the  cry  for  justice. 

This  great  and  powerful  force — the  accumulated 
wealth  of  the  United  States — has  taken  over  all  the 
functions  of  Government,  Congress,  the  issue  of 
money,  and  banking  and  the  army  and  navy  in  order 
to  have  a  band  of  mercenaries  to  do  their  bidding  and 
protect  their  stolen  property. 

Immediately  after  the  announcement  that  Rockefel 
ler  was  worth  a  billion  dollars,  Armour  &  Swift  an 
nounced  a  dividend  upon  their  capital  stock  of  thirty- 
three  and  one-third  per  cent  and  each  of  these  concerns 
increased  their  capital  stock  from  twenty  millions  to 
one  hundred  millions. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  neither  of  these  concerns  had 
any  capital  stock  for  which  they  had  paid  a  dollar. 
Their  capital  stock  represented  what  they  had  stolen 
from  the  people  of  this  country.  Their  working  capital 
is  represented  by  bonds.  The  eighty  millions  of  stock 
which  they  have  since  added  is  also  nothing  but  water 
and  is  issued  so  as  to  make  the  annual  dividends  appear 
smaller.  The  exploited  people  will  object  less  to  paying 
six  or  seven  per  cent  on  a  hundred  millions  than  to 
paying  thirty-three  and  one-third  per  cent  on  twenty 
millions.  It  looks  better  in  print. 

120 


How  do  Armour  and  Swift  make  their  money  ?  They 
are  the  great  packers.  They  are  in  collusion.  They  fix 
the  prices  they  pay  the  farmer  for  his  hogs  and  cattle, 
and  they  fix  the  prices  they  will  charge  the  consumer 
for  their  product.  They  are  simply  robbing  the  pro 
ducer  and  the  consumer,  and  their  robbery  is  repre 
sented  in  their  great  wealth,  which  they  did  not  pro 
duce  but  which  they  took  from  the  people  under  the 
guise  of  law. 

When  the  bill  to  take  the  census  of  1890  was  pending 
before  Congress  I  secured  an  amendment  requiring  the 
enumerators  to  ascertain  the  distribution  of  wealth 
through  an  inquiry  into  farms,  homes  and  mortgages. 

Using  the  figures  thus  secured  by  the  enumerators 
of  the  census  of  1890,  on  June  10,  1898,  I  delivered  a 
speech  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  on  the  sub 
ject  of  the  distribution  of  wealth  in  the  United  States 
and,  from  the  census  of  1890,  I  showed  that  52  per 
cent  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  owned  S95.00 
worth  of  property  per  capita,  or  S95.00  each  of  second 
hand  clothing  and  second-hand  furniture,  and  that  four 
thousand  families  owned  twelve  billions  of  the  wealth, 
and  that  6,640,000  families,  cr  52  per  cent  of  the  popu 
lation,  owned  three  billions  of  the  wealth,  or  just  five 
per  cent  of  the  total. 

The  facts,  as  ascertained  by  the  census-takers  in 
1890,  appear,  summarized,  in  the  following  table : 


Distribution  of   Wealth   by  Census    1890 


Class  Families 

Millionaires   4,000 

Rich    1.139,000 

Total  Rich 1,143.000 

Middle   4,953.000 

Poor    6,604,000 


Per 
Cod 

.03 

8.97 

9.00 

39.00 

52.00 


Average 

Wealth 

$3,000,000 

27,000 

37,358 

•:.K<: 

454 


Aggregate        Per 

Wealth        Cent 

$12,000,000,000       20 

30,600,000,000 

42,600,000,000 

14,400,000,000 

3,000,000,000 


51 
71 


Grand   Total....   12,700,000     100.00     $        4,725     $60,000,000,000     100 

121 


Diagrams  Showing,  by  Percentages,  the  Population  and  Wealth 

Distribution  in  the  United  States,  According  to  the 

Census  of   1890 


POPULATION 


WEALTH 


Millionaires..        .03 
Rich 8.97 


Total 


9% 


Middle   39% 


Poor 52% 

Total 100% 


9% 


39% 


52% 


Millionaires..   20% 
Rich 51% 


Total 


71% 


Middle   24% 


Poor 


5% 


Total 100% 


71% 


24% 


5% 


It  will  be  seen  from  these  tables,  which  are  compiled 
from  the  census  report  of  1890,  that  52  per  cent  of  the 
people,  or  two  per  cent  more  than  half  of  them,  owned 
but  five  per  cent  of  the  accumulated  wealth  of  the 
United  States.  The  report  of  the  Industrial  Commis 
sion  which  thoroughly  investigated  the  distribution  of 
wealth  in  the  United  States  discloses  the  fact  that, 
after  twenty-six  years,  covering  half  of  the  period  in 
which  Rockefeller  and  Armour  and  Swift  and  the  other 
exploiters  of  the  people  have  accumulated  their  vast 
fortunes,  the  number  of  people  who  participated  in  the 
five  per  cent  of  the  wealth  of  the  United  States  has  in 
creased  from  52  per  cent  of  our  total  population  to  65 
per  cent. 

I  have  prepared  a  diagram  illustrating  the  conclu 
sions  reached  by  the  experts  of  the  Industrial  Commis- 

122 


sion,  which  pictures  the  stupendous  inequalities  that 
have  arisen  in  the  United  States  during  the  past 
twenty-six  years : 

Distribution  of  Wealth,  Report  of  Industrial  Commission,   1915 


Class 
Rich    

Number 
.  .     2,000,000 

Per 

Cent 
2% 

Average 
Wealth 
$42,000 

Aggregate 
Wealth 
$  84,000,000,000 

Per 

Cent 
60% 

Middle    

.  .   33,000,000 

33% 

1,480 

49~,000,000,000 

35% 

Poor       .  . 

.    65  000,000 

65% 

107 

7,000,000,000 

5% 

Grand  Total.  .100,000,000     100%       $1,400 
Total  Popu- 


$140,000,000,000     100% 


lation  of                                         Total  Wealth 
..    100,000,000                                     $140,000,000,00 

Middle 
33% 
or 
33,000,000 

Poor  —  5%  or 
$7,000,000,000 

Rich 

60% 
or 

$84,000,000,000 

Poor 
65% 
or 

65,000,000 

Middle 
35% 
or 

$49,000,000,000 

5% 

I  wish  a  careful  examination  of  these  tables.  You 
will  see  that  sixty-five  per  cent  of  the  people  own  five 
per  cent  of  the  wealth  and  that  t\vo  per  cent  of  the  pop 
ulation — the  little  black  line  at  the  top  of  the  diagram 
— own  sixty  per  cent  of  the  wealth.  They  did  not 
produce  the  wealth.  It  was  all  produced  by  the  sixty-five 
per  cent  of  the  population  who  have  nothing.  They 
were  able  to  do  it  because  they  owned  the  Government 

123 


and  the  courts  and  enacted  the  laws  which  made  it  pos 
sible.  They  have  done  it  through  manipulation,  com 
bination  and  exploitation.  They  have  done  it  through 
corporations.  They  have  done  it  because  they  own  the 
railroads  and  the  banks  and  all  the  public  utilities,  and 
used  them  all — all  of  these  great  important  public  ser 
vice  institutions  in  order  to  gather  the  products  of 
everybody's  toil  into  their  own  hands.  In  other  words, 
they  have  stolen  what  others  have  produced. 

These  were  the  figures  for  1916.  Since  that  time 
there  have  come  the  war  and  the  panic,  with  their  huge 
crop  of  millionaires  and  their  further  concentration  of 
wealth  and  of  economic  power. 

But,  you  may  ask,  why  is  it  necessary  to  turn  to  the 
figures  of  the  Industrial  Commission?  Why  not  use 
the  census  figures  ?  The  answer  is  very  simple.  Since 
the  publication  of  the  1890  figures,  the  plutocrats  have 
decided  that  the  facts  regarding  wealth  distribution 
shall  not  be  permitted  to  get  into  the  hands  of  the 
American  people. 

When  I  entered  the  Senate  I  believed  that  the  ques 
tion  of  the  distribution  of  wealth  was  one  of  the  most 
important  ones  before  the  American  people  and  one 
that  was  receiving  no  attention  whatever.  While  I  was 
in  the  House  I  had  made  the  personal  acquaintance  of 
Senator  Jones  of  Arkansas,  who  was  on  the  Committee 
on  Indian  Affairs  in  the  Senate,  and  Senator  Berry  of 
Arkansas,  who  was  on  the  Committee  on  Public  Lands 
in  the  Senate.  So  that,  before  the  Senate  convened  in 
December,  1889 — when  I  took  my  seat  in  the  Senate,  I 
had  talked  with  these  two  Senators  about  securing 
legislation  to  ascertain  the  distribution  of  wealth  in  the 
United  States.  They  had  entered  heartily  into  the  plan 
and  we  prepared  a  bill  for  that  purpose,*  which  was 

*  The  bill  was  worded  as  follows: 

"That  a  census  of  the  population,  wealth  and  in 
dustry  of  the  United  States  shall  be  taken  as  of  the 
date  of  June  1,  1890.  Statutes  of  the  U.  S.,  p.  761, 
March  1,  1899." 

124 


introduced  by  Senator  Berry  as  an  amendment  to  the 
Census  Bill  of  1890.  The  bill  attracted  little  attention 
and  was  passed  practically  without  opposition,  but  I  had 
great  difficulty  in  getting  the  persons  in  charge  of  tak 
ing  the  census  to  go  thoroughly  into  the  question. 
Finally,  under  the  head  of  "Farms,  Homes  and  Mort 
gages,"  an  investigation  was  made  by  Holmes  and  a 
report  was  issued,  I  think,  about  1898.  This  report 
showed  a  remarkable  economic  condition  in  this  coun 
try  and  disclosed  the  fact  that  52  per  cent  of  our  popu 
lation  had  five  per  cent  of  the  wealth  they  had  pro 
duced,  and  that  nine  per  cent  of  our  population  had  a 
majority  of  all  the  property  in  this  country.  I  made 
a  speech  in  the  Senate  upon  this  subject,  going  quite 
fully  into  the  question,  and  in  that  speech  I  predicted 
that  the  number  of  people  who  had  nothing  would 
steadily  increase  under  our  system,  and  that  the  num 
ber  of  people  who  owned  a  majority  of  the  wealth 
would  steadily  decrease. 

I  considered  the  question  so  important  that  I  secured 
a  place  on  the  Senate  Census  Committee  to  prepare  the 
bill  for  taking  the  census  of  1900.  In  the  committee  I 
urged  an  amendment  to  the  bill  for  taking  the  census 
which  should  go  fully  into  the  question  of  the  distri 
bution  of  wealth  in  this  country,  but  the  committee  re 
fused  to  adopt  my  amendment  or  to  take  any  notice  of 
the  question  whatever.  Incidentally,  the  committee 
was  composed  of  lawyers  and  a  lawyer  is  trained  to 
believe  that  it  is  the  right  of  property  in  the  hands  of 
men  who  did  not  produce  the  property  that  is  sacred, 
and  not  the  rights  of  man.  Or  that  society  has  any 
obligation  whatever  to  those  who  toil.  We  borrowed 
this  from  England  and  it  is  thoroughly  inculcated  into 
our  whole  system  of  educational  and  economic  life  that 
there  is  nc  question  but  that  the  lawyers  honestly  be 
lieve  it  to  be  true.  After  the  Census  Bill  was  re 
ported  to  the  Senate  I  offered  my  amendment  under 
these  circumstances : 

125 


(Congressional  Record,  56th  Congress,  1st  Session, 
Jan.  11,  1900,  vol.  331,  p.  779.) 

Mr.  PETTIGREW :  "I  offer  an  amendment,  which 
I  send  to  the  desk." 

THE  PRESIDENT  PRO  TEMPORE :  "The  amend 
ment  of  the  Senator  from  South  Dakota  will  be 
stated." 

THE  SECRETARY:  "It  is  proposed  to  add,  as 
section  3,  the  following: 

"Sec.  3.  That  the  Director  of  the  Census 
is  hereby  required  to  collect  statistics  re 
lating  to  the  indebtedness  of  individuals 
and  corporations,  public  or  private;  also  in 
relation  to  the  distribution  of  wealth  among 
the  people  of  the  United  States ;  also  statis 
tics  as  to  the  displacement  of  labor  by  ma 
chinery,  and  the  increase  of  the  power  of 
production  by  machinery  in  proportion  to 
the  number  of  laborers  employed  during 
the  last  thirty  years.  And  for  this  purpose 
the  Director  of  the  Census  may  employ  spe 
cial  agents,  and  such  special  agents  shall 
receive  such  compensation  as  other  special 
agents." 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "Mr.  President,  this  amend 
ment  is  intended  to  secure  statistics  with  regard  to 
the  distribution  of  wealth.  It  does  not  require  the 
enumerators  to  gather  the  statistics  on  this  subject, 
and  therefore  will  not  delay  the  purpose  of  the  law 
which  we  have  passed. 

"We  make  the  Census  Bureau,  as  I  understand,  a 
perpetual  bureau  of  statistics  and  information,  and 
to  fail  to  gather  the  information  referred  to  in  my 
amendment,  it  seems  to  me,  would  be  a  very  serious 
mistake.  The  question  as  to  what  becomes  of  what 
the  toilers  of  the  land  produce,  whether  it  goes  to 
them  or  is  taken  from  them  by  special  privileges,  and 

126 


accumulated  in  the  hands  of  a  very  few  people  is  a 
very  important  one  and  reaches  ultimately  the  ques 
tion  of  the  preservation  of  free  institutions. 

"The  other  subject  in  my  amendment  is  with  re 
gard  to  the  displacement  of  labor  by  machinery  and 
the  increased  power  of  production  thereby.  I  de 
sire  this  information  for  the  reason  that  I  believe 
man's  power  to  produce,  as  the  result  of  the  adop 
tion  of  machinery,  has  increased  many  times  more 
than  the  increase  of  his  wages,  which  should  have 
occurred  as  a  result  of  his  increased  powers  of  pro 
duction  ;  in  other  words,  that  the  increased  power  of 
production  is  the  result  of  machinery  and  has  inured 
to  the  advantage  of  capital  many  times  more  than 
to  the  advantage  of  labor;  that  this  has  caused  in  a 
large  degree  the  unequal  distribution  of  wealth  in 
this  country;  that  the  increased  power  of  production, 
as  the  result  of  machinery,  should  go  to  the  toiler  in 
a  much  larger  degree  than  to  the  capital  employed ; 
that  the  power  to  produce  by  machinery  is  a  benefit 
to  mankind  if  the  increased  power  to  produce  goes  to 
the  toiler,  because  his  power  to  consume  is  also  in 
creased,  and  thus  the  consumption  and  enjoyment  of 
a  greater  measure  of  the  luxuries  and  comforts  of  life 
must  go  to  those  who  produce  the  wealth  of  the  land. 

"I  therefore  believe  these  two  questions  are  ex 
ceedingly  important ;  and  I  have  asked  that  this  in 
formation  be  collected  by  special  agents  rather  than 
by  the  enumerators,  so  that  it  will  not  delay  a  single 
day  or  a  single  hour  the  securing  of  that  information 
which  seems  to  be  the  prime  object  of  the  bill. 

"I  hope  the  additional  section  I  have  offered  will 
be  adopted  without  objection." 

(Jan.  11,  1900.) 

Mr.  TILLM AN :  "I  will  say  for  the  information  of 
the  Senator  from  Georgia  that  if  it  is  not  taken  with 
the  first  census  it  cannot  be  taken  at  all,  without  an 
intolerable  additional  expense.  It  is  for  the  Senate 

127 


to  determine  whether  it  will  enlarge  the  scope  of  the 
census.  If  we  break  down  the  barrier  erected  by  the 
Census  Committee,  we  simply,  as  we  were  notified 
by  the  Senator  from  Misouri  (Mr.  Cockrell)  the  other 
day,  open  up  a  flood  of  amendments  concerning  each 
special  class  of  inquiry  any  senator  may  wish  to  have 
included." 

Mr.  PETTIGREW :  "My  amendment  provides  for 
nothing  of  the  kind.  It  simply  provides  that  this 
Census  Bureau  of  statistics,  which  is  perpetual,  may, 
by  special  agents,  not  by  enumerators,  investigate 
this  all-important  subject.  I  think  the  census  would 
be  of  very  little  value  without  it.  It  is  not  personal 
to  myself,  nor  a  subject  that  I  am  particularly  or  per 
sonally  interested  in,  but  it  is  a  great  public  question. 
The  question  of  the  distribution  of  the  wealth  of  this 
country  is  certainly  a  question  of  more  importance 
than  almost  anything  else  that  can  be  investigated. 
As  the  Senator  from  Colorado  (Mr.  Teller)  has  said, 
we  have  almost  day  by  day  a  very  accurate  estimate 
of  the  population.  We  have  very  many  other  statis 
tics  which  are  constantly  being  produced  by  the  sta 
tistical  bureau,  but  the  question  of  the  distribution 
of  the  wealth  of  this  country  has  never  been  ade 
quately  and  fairly  investigated.  It  ought  to  be. 

"I  do  not  propose  to  delay  the  taking  of  the  census, 
and  my  amendment  does  not  delay  it  at  all.  It 
simply  provides  an  additional  section  for  the  doing 
of  this  additional  work.  If  the  schedules  are  all 
prepared  and  the  work  is  disposed  of,  the  enumer 
ators  can  commence  their  operations;  and  therefore 
the  Department  will  have  the  time  to  get  out  addi 
tional  schedules  for  the  special  agents  to  do  the  work 
which  I  desire  to  have  done.  This  work  cannot 
commence  until  an  appropriation  is  made.  It  is  quite 
proper,  then,  that  the  amendment  should  be  on  this 
bill,  because  section  8  is  in  the  original  law,  which 
provides  a  large  amount  of  extra  work  to  be  done 

128 


after  the  main  census  has  been  taken  through  the 
enumerators;  and  if  it  was  a  proper  time  to  provide 
section  8  in  the  law  when  it  passed  last  year,  it  is 
time  now  for  my  amendment  to  be  placed  on  this  bill. 
That  is  all  I  want.  I  do  not  care  to  discuss  it  further/* 

The  reasons  in  favor  of  taking  a  wealth  census 
seemed  to  me  conclusive.  Nevertheless,  the  amend 
ment  met  with  universal  opposition,  and  it  was  re 
jected. 

When  the  census  bill  was  pending  to  take  the  cen 
sus  of  1910,  I  wrote  to  Senator  LaFollette  and  urged 
him  to  secure  an  amendment  with  relation  to  the  dis 
tribution  of  wealth  in  this  country,  but  LaFollette  is 
a  lawyer  and  he  did  nothing.  I  also  sent  him  a  state 
ment  of  the  facts  in  connection  with  the  matter  and 
a  copy  of  my  speech  delivered  in  1898  on  this  sub 
ject,  but  I  was  unable  to  accomplish  anything,  as  the 
Senate  was  still  composed  almost  entirely  of  lawyers 
who  had  represented  as  attorneys,  before  they  en 
tered  the  Senate  and  who  still  continued  to  represent 
as  attorneys  after  they  entered  the  Senate,  the  great 
industrial,  financial,  transportation  and  exploiting 
interests. 

While  the  census  bill  to  provide  for  the  census  of 
1920  was  under  consideration  in  both  Houses,  I  went 
to  Washington  and  personally  went  to  the  committee 
of  both  Houses  and  urged  the  importance  of  secur 
ing  statistics  with  regard  to  the  distribution  of  wealth 
in  this  country,  but  neither  committee  would  enter 
tain  my  proposed  amendment  or  listen  with  patience 
to  any  argument. 

In  reply  to  my  analyses  of  the  situation,  the  mem 
bers  of  the  committees  insisted  that  it  was  not  true. 
"Why,"  said  they,  "look  about  you  and  see  the  pros 
perity  everywhere.  How  can  you  say  then  that  the 
wealth  of  the  country  is  in  the  hands  of  the  rich?" 

"Well,"  I  answered,  "if  it  is  not  true,  and  if  the 
Census  of  1890,  the  Industrial  Commission,  and  all  of 

129 


the  rest  of  the  authorities  are  wrong,  the  thing  to  do 
is  to  take  another  wealth  census  and  disprove  all  of 
their  false  statements/'  Still,  I  could  make  no  im 
pression  on  the  lawyers  who  made  up  both  commit 
tees. 

The  Committees  of  Congress,  having  the  censuses 
of  1910  and  1920  in  charge,  refused  to  include  in  the 
census  bills  a  clause  requiring  the  enumerators  to 
ascertain  the  distribution  of  wealth,  because  they, 
as  representatives  of  the  plutocracy,  did  not  desire 
the  facts  to  be  known.  The  bulk  of  the  American 
people  have  little  or  no  wealth ;  the  economic  power 
of  the  United  States  is  concentrated  in  the  hands  of 
the  few,  and  the  few  are  determined  to  keep  the 
many  in  ignorance  as  long  as  they  possibly  can. 

I  have  gone  into  some  detail  with  regard  to  this 
matter  of  the  wealth  census,  not  so  much  because  of 
its  intrinsic  importance,  but  because  of  its  relation 
to  otber  and  similar  issues.  Again  and  again,  on 
other  questions,  the  same  men  who  refused  to  gather 
the  evidence  of  wealth  concentration  have  introduced 
and  voted  for  the  measures  which  were  drawn  up  by 
the  attorneys  of  the  vested  interests  for  the  purpose 
of  increasing  wealth  concentration. 

The  economic  power  of  the  United  States  has  been 
concentrated  in  the  hands  of  a  very  few,  and  they  are 
the  Government.  They  pass  the  laws  that  in  their 
judgment  will  protect  and  defend  the  property  upon 
which  their  power  depends;  they  secure  the  appoint 
ment  of  judges  who  will  interpret  and  who  do  inter 
pret  this  legislation  in  the  interest  of  the  wealth- 
owning  classes;  control  those  who  execute  the  laws, 
from  the  presidents  down— indeed,  for  the  most  part, 
the  presidents  are  lawyers,  and  either  members  of 
the  plutocracy,  or  else  paid  retainers  of  the  plutoc 
racy;  they  control  all  of  the  channels  of  public  opin 
ion — the  press,  the  schools,  the  church ;  they  control 
the  labor  unions  through  the  control  of  their  leaders 

130 


and  of  the  policy  that  the  leaders  pursue ;  possessors 
of  the  land  on  which  the  farmer  must  work,  of  the 
mines  and  the  machines  with  which  the  laborer  must 
work,  in  order  to  live,  the  plutocracy — the  wealth 
class — in  the  United  States  is  supreme  over  the  af 
fairs  of  public  life. 

Today  this  economic  power  is  not  ashamed  to  show 
its  head  and  take  its  place  as  the  master  of  the 
American  Government  and  as  the  overlord  of  the 
American  people.  They  used  to  talk  about  the  In 
visible  Government  when  I  entered  the  Senate  in 
1890,  but  it  is  invisible  no  longer.  The  real  govern 
ment  is  not  in  Washington.  Its  attorneys  are  there, 
but  its  responsible  directors  are  in  New  York  and  in 
the  other  great  centers  of  commerce  and  industry. 
Wealth  means  power  in  an  industrial  civilization, 
and  the  few,  owning  the  bulk  of  the  wealth  of  the 
United  States,  exercise  their  plutocratic  power  over 
the  lives  of  the  American  people,  who  are  forced, 
whether  they  will  or  no,  to  do  the  bidding  of  their 
wealth  lords.  And  therefore  I  say — Capital  is  stolen 
labor  and  its  only  function  is  to  steal  more  labor. 


131 


X.     WHO  MADE  THE  CONSTITUTION 

I  have  written  in  some  detail  of  the  economic 
changes  and  of  the  changes  in  economic  policy  that 
have  occurred  in  the  United  States  during  the  past  50 
years.  The  first  year  that  I  went  to  Washington 
(1870)  the  population  of  Chicago  was  298,977;  to 
day  (1920)  it  is  2,701,705;  the  population  of  Detroit 
was  79,577;  today  it  is  993,739;  the  population  of 
Minneapolis  was  13,006;  today  it  is  380,582;  the 
population  of  Dakota  was  14,181;  today  it  is  1,281,- 
569.  I  have  watched  the  Middle  West  grow  from  a 
sparsely  settled  wilderness,  the  home  of  Indians  and 
of  buffaloes,  to  the  greatest  center  of  agriculture  and 
of  industry  in  the  world.  I  have  watched  the  public 
domain  slip  out  of  the  hands  of  the  people,  and  into 
the  hands  of  speculators,  of  corporations  and  of  mon 
opolies.  I  have  seen  the  bankers,  the  trust  magnates 
and  the  masters  of  transportation  and  other  forms  of 
monopoly  rise  from  obscurity  to  their  present  position 
of  domination  in  public  affairs.  I  have  watched  the 
growth  of  the  plutocracy — the  few  who  rule  indus 
try,  the  Government  and  the  press  because  they  are 
rich. 

In  the  halls  of  the  Capitol  at  Washington,  I  have 
watched  these  plutocrats,  through  their  representa 
tives  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  and  the  House,  erect 
the  governmental  machinery  that  they  required  for 
the  preservation  of  their  power.  Step  by  step  and 
move  by  move  I  fought  the  system  of  imperialism 
which  the  McKinley  administration  enabled  them  to 
establish  as  the  accepted  policy  of  the  country.  The 
fight  lasted  twelve  years.  When  it  was  over,  the  in 
terests  that  I  had  opposed  were  the  triumphant  mas 
ters  of  the  field. 

When  I  entered  the  Senate,  I  did  not  understand 
what  it  was  that  I  was  facing.  When  I  left  the 
Senate,  because  Mark  Hanna  and  the  forces  behind 

132 


Mark  Hanna  willed  that  I  should  leave,  I  knew  that 
the  forms  of  our  government  and  the  machinery  of 
its  administration  were  established  and  maintained 
for  the  benefit  of  the  class  that  held  the  economic 
and  political  power. 

I  realized  that  the  machinery  of  government  had 
been  constructed  by  the  ruling  economic  class  to  pre 
serve  and  guarantee  its  own  economic  interests. 
Documents  like  the  Constitution,  which  I,  as  a  child, 
had  been  taught  to  regard  as  almost  divine  in  their 
origin,  stood  before  me  for  what  they  were — plans 
prepared  by  business  men  to  stabilize  business  in 
terests. 

At  the  time  that  our  Constitution  was  drawn  up, 
Adam  Smith  wrote  of  the  government  in  the  "mother 
country"  (Wealth  of  Nations,  Book  V.,  Ch.  1,  pub 
lished  in  1776),  "Civil  government,  so  far  as  it  is 
instituted  for  the  security  of  property,  is  in  reality 
instituted  for  the  defense  of  the  rich  against  the  poor, 
or  of  those  who  have  some  property  against  those 
who  have  none  at  all."  Again  he  stated  (Book  1, 
Ch.  10) ,  "Whenever  the  legislature  attempts  to  regu 
late  the  differences  between  masters  and  their  work 
men,  its  counsellors  are  always  the  masters." 

Concerning  this  same  epoch  a  well-known  modern 
historian  writes :  "During  the  period  we  are  discuss 
ing  (1760-1832)  .  .  .  the  classes  that  possessed  au 
thority  in  the  State,  and  the  classes  that  had  acquired 
the  new  wealth,  landlords,  churchmen,  judges,  man 
ufacturers,  one  and  all  understood  by  government 
the  protection  of  society  from  the  fate  that  had  over 
taken  the  privileged  classes  in  France."  (The  Town 
Laborer,  J.  L.  &  B.  Hammond,  N.  Y.  Longmans, 
1917,  p.  321).  It  was  this  government  by  landlords 
and  manufacturers  that  the  framers  of  the  Constitu 
tion  knew,  and  they  knew  no  other.  Their  idea  of 
government  was  the  British  idea — a  machine  for  pro 
tecting  the  rich  against  the  poor;  a  device  for  safe- 

133 


guarding  and  defending  privilege  against  the  clam 
orous  and  revolutionary  demands  of  the  populace. 
Their  goal  was  the  protection  of  the  propertied  in 
terests  and  they  drew  the  Constitution  with  that  end 
in  view. 

Furthermore,  it  was  the  leading  business  men  of 
the  colonists,  in  their  own  persons,  who  drew  up  the 
Constitution  and  forced  through  its  ratification. 
"The  movement  for  the  Constitution,"  writes  Charles 
A.  Beard,  the  distinguished  student  of  American 
Government,  "was  originated  and  carried  through 
principally  by  four  groups  of  personality  interests, 
which  had  been  adversely  affected  under  the  Articles 
of  Confederation — money,  public  securities,  manu 
facturers,  and  trade  and  shipping."  (An  Economic 
Interpretation  of  the  Constitution,  New  York,  Mac- 
Millan  1914,  p.  324.)  These  events  transpired  nearly 
a  century-and-a-half  ago,  and  ever  since  that  time 
we  have  been  building  up  the  kind  of  a  government 
that  bankers,  manufacturers  and  merchants  needed 
for  their  enrichment. 

This  point  is  so  fundamental  to  a  proper  under 
standing  of  what  I  have  to  say  about  the  machinery 
of  American  Government  that  I  desire  to  emphasize 
it.  School  teachers  talk  to  children  and  public  men 
harangue  their  constituents  as  though  the  Constitu 
tion  were  a  document  drawn  to  establish  human  lib 
erty.  By  these  means  our  ideas  as  to  the  intention 
of  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  have  been  utterly 
distorted.  Anyone  who  wishes  to  know  the  facts 
should  examine  the  Journal  of  the  Constitutional 
Convention.  There  the  record  is  as  plain  as  the  road 
at  noonday.  The  Constitution  was  not  drawn  up  to 
safeguard  liberty.  Its  framers  had  property  rights 
in  their  minds'  eye  and  property  deeds  in  their  pock 
ets,  and  its  most  enthusiastic  supporters  were  the 
leading  bankers,  manufacturers  and  traders  of  the 
Federated  States. 

134 


The  Constitution  was  made  to  protect  the  rights 
of  property  and  not  the  rights  of  man. 

These  facts  are  neither  secret  nor  hidden.  They 
are  a  part  of  the  public  record  that  may  be  con 
sulted  in  any  first  class  library.  Properly  under 
stood,  they  furnish  the  intellectual  key  that  will  open 
the  mind  to  an  appreciation  of  many  of  the  most  im 
portant  events  that  have  occurred  in  the  United 
States  during  the  past  century. 

The  convention  that  framed  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  convened  at  Philadelphia  in  1787 
behind  closed  doors.  All  of  the  delegates  were 
sworn  to  secrecy.  Madison  reported  the  proceedings 
of  the  convention  in  longhand  and  his  notes  were 
purchased  in  1837  by  Congress  and  published  by  the 
Government  nearly  half  a  century  after  the  conven 
tion  had  finished  its  work.  These  notes  disclose  the 
forces  that  dominated  the  work  of  the  convention 
and  show  that  the  object  which  the  leaders  of  the 
convention  had  in  view  was  not  to  create  a  democ 
racy  or  a  government  of  the  people,  but  to  establish 
a  government  by  the  property  classes  in  the  interests 
of  the  rights  of  property  rather  than  the  rights  of 
man.  All  through  the  debates  ran  one  theme :  How 
to  secure  a  government,  not  by  the  people  and  for 
the  people,  but  by  the  classes  and  for  the  classes, 
with  the  lawyers  in  control. 

Jefferson  was  not  a  member  of  the  convention. 
As  the  author  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
he  was  not  wanted  in  the  convention,  and  so  he  was 
sent  to  France  on  a  diplomatic  mission. 

I  will  give  two  extracts  from  these  proceedings  to  il 
lustrate  this  point ;  they  are  typical,  and  are  as  follows : 

Madison  (p.  78)  quotes  Sherman  of  Connecticut  as 
saying:  ''The  people  should  have  as  little  to  do  as 
may  be  about  the  Government.  They  want  infor 
mation  and  are  constantly  liable  to  be  misled." 

Again   (p.  115)   Mr.  Gerry  is  quoted  as  follows: 

135 


"Hence  in  Massachusetts  the  worst  men  get  into  the 
legislature.  Several  members  of  that  body  had 
lately  been  convicted  of  infamous  crimes.  Men  of 
indigence,  ignorance  and  baseness,  spare  no  pains, 
however  dirty,  to  carry  their  point  against  men  who 
are  superior  to  the  artifices  practiced."  This  is  the 
burden  of  the  debates  through  page  after  page  of  the 
two  volumes. 

The  chief  contention  in  the  Constitutional  Conven 
tion  was  over  representation  in  the  United  States 
Senate.  The  smaller  states  feared  that  they  would 
be  dominated  by  the  larger  ones  and,  after  much  de 
bate,  it  was  agreed  that  each  state,  no  matter  what 
its  wealth  or  population,  should  have  two  votes  in  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States,  while  the  House  of  Rep- 
representatives  should  represent  the  people  and  the 
number  of  delegates  from  each  state  should  be  in 
proportion  to  the  population.  As  a  concession  to  the 
larger  states,  a  provision  was  inserted  requiring  that 
all  money  bills  should  originate  in  the  House  of  Rep 
resentatives,  and  this  was  considered  important,  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  the  states  of  small  area  and 
small  population,  such  as  Delaware  and  Rhode 
Island,  had  an  equal  voice  with  large  states  like  Vir 
ginia  and  Pennsylvania  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States. 

The  southern  states  believed  they  had  obtained  pro 
tection  for  their  peculiar  institution  (slavery)  by  secur 
ing  representation  in  the  House  of  Representatives  for 
the  slave  population.  At  the  same  time,  the  southern 
slave-holders  and  the  northern  slave-traders  combined 
to  secure  the  insertion  of  a  clause  (Article  1,  Section 
IX,  Clause  1)  permitting  the  slave  trade  to  continue 
until  1808. 

At  the  time  of  framing  the  Constitution,  and  for 
many  years  thereafter,  it  was  supposed  and  intended 
that  the  Senate  should  represent  the  states  while  the 
House  represented  the  people.  No  vested  interest  ever 
thought  of  gaining  control  of  the  Senate  for  the  pur- 

136 


pose  of  advancing  the  commercial  or  financial  position 
of  any  combination,  corporation  or  individual.  It  was 
not  until  a  third  of  a  century  after  the  adoption  of  the 
Constitution  that  the  southern  states  began  to  look 
to  the  Senate  for  the  protection  of  their  interests  and 
to  insist  upon  the  admission  of  a  slave  state  whenever 
a  free  state  asked  for  admission  to  the  Union. 

The  immediate  purpose  behind  the  creation  of  a 
Senate  that  was  not  elected  by  the  people,  but  that 
came  from  the  state  legislatures  and  thus  spoke  in 
name  of  states  rather  than  of  masses  of  citizens,  was 
the  protection  of  the  small  colonies  against  the  large 
ones.  The  interests  that  dominated  both  the  .small  and 
the  large  colonies,  however,  were  the  business  inter 
ests.  Therefore,  this  struggle  between  those  who 
wanted  one  form  of  Senate  and  those  who  wanted  an 
other  was  a  struggle  between  contending  and  compet 
ing  business  groups.  It  was  not  in  any  sense  a  struggle 
between  the  champions  of  liberty  and  the  advocates  of 
property  rights. 

This  fact  is  made  evident  by  an  examination  of  the 
interests  of  these  men  who  made  up  the  Constitutional 
Convention  of  1787.  There  were  fifty-five  delegates 
present  in  the  Convention.  A  majority  were  lawyers ; 
most  of  them  came  from  towns;  there  was  not  one 
farmer,  mechanic  or  laborer  among  them;  five-sixths 
had  property  interests.  Of  the  55  members,  40  owned 
revolutionary  scrip ;  14  were  land  speculators ;  24  were 
money-lenders;  11  were  merchants;  15  were  slave 
holders.  Washington,  the  big  man  of  the  Convention, 
was  a  slave-holder,  land  speculator  and  a  large  scrip 
owner. 

Jefferson  was  in  France! 

The  Constitution,  as  framed  by  the  Convention,  says 
nothing  about  the  rights  of  man.  It  contains  no  guar 
antee  of  free  speech,  of  free  press,  of  free  assemblage, 
or  of  religious  liberty.  It  breathes  no  single  hint  of 
freedom.  It  was  made  by  men  who  believed  in  the 

137 


English  theory,  that  all  governments  are  created  to 
protect  the  rights  of  property  in  the  hands  of  those 
who  do  not  produce  it. 

The  revolutionary  scrip-paper  money,  to  finance  the 
Revolutionary  War,  had  been  used  to  pay  for  supplies 
and  to  pay  the  wages  of  the  men  that  did  the  fighting. 
In  the  years  that  followed  the  war,  this  scrip  had  been 
bought  up  by  the  financiers  and  great  land-owners  and 
their  attorneys  for  about  nine  cents  on  the  dollar.  The 
Constitution,  as  adopted,  made  it  worth  one  hundred 
cents  on  the  dollar.  This  is  but  one  of  the  many  facts 
which  prove  that  the  Constitution,  as  drawn  up  by  the 
Convention,  was  made  to  protect  the  rights  of  property 
rather  than  the  rights  of  man. 

Throughout  the  document  the  framers  were  careful 
to  guard  against  too  much  democracy.  The  Govern 
ment  was  erected  in  three  parts — legislative,  executive 
and  judicial — each  with  a  check  on  the  other  two.  The 
House  of  Representatives  alone  was  elected  directly  by 
the  people,  but  all  of  its  legislative  acts  were  subject 
to  revision  or  rejection  by  the  Senate,  the  members  of 
which  were  to  be  selected,  not  by  popular  vote  but  by 
the  vote  of  the  state  legislatures.  Thus,  even  the  legis 
lative  branch  of  the  Government  did  not  represent  the 
popular  will.  If  the  legislative  branch  had  been  respon 
sible  to  the  people,  there  were  still  the  President, 
elected,  not  by  the  vote  of  the  people,  but  by  the  vote 
of  electors,  who  were  elected  by  the  people;  and,  last 
of  all,  and  by  no  means  the  least,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  vested  interests,  there  was  the  Supreme  Court — 
its  members  selected  by  the  President,  confirmed  by  the 
Senate,  sitting  for  life.  Over  these  supreme  judges, 
the  people  could  not  exercise  even  an  indirect  control. 

This  was  the  Constitution  drawn  up  while  Thomas 
Jefferson  was  in  France.  It  was  submitted  to  the  states 
for  ratification  and  the  states  refused  to  accept  it.  In 
all  probability  it  never  would  have  been  ratified  had 
Thomas  Jefferson  not  returned  from  France  and 
thrown  his  great  influence  in  favor  of  the  first  ten 

138 


amendments — the  Bill  of  Rights  that  was  added  to  the 
Constitution  by  its  business  backers,  as  the  necessary 
price  of  its  adoption  by  the  people. 
Article  I  of  these  Amendments  reads : 

"Congress  shall  make  no  law  respecting  an 
establishment  of  religion,  or  prohibiting  the 
free  exercise  thereof;  or  abridging  the  free 
dom  of  speech  or  of  the  press;  or  the 
right  of  the  people  peaceably  to  assemble 
and  to  petition  the  Government  for  redress  of 
grievances." 

Article  IV  of  the  Amendments  provides : 

"The  right  of  the  people  to  be  secure  in 
their  persons,  houses,  paper  and  effects, 
against  unreasonable  searches  and  seizures, 
shall  not  be  violated;  and  no  warrants  shall 
issue  but  upon  probable  cause,  supported  by 
oath  or  affirmation,  and  particularly  describ 
ing  the  place  to  be  searched,  and  the  persons 
or  things  to  be  seized." 

These  are  the  principal  guarantees  of  liberty,  in 
serted  in  the  Constitution  after  the  Convention  of  busi 
ness  men  had  finished  its  work,  and  inserted  because 
the  people  insisted  upon  having  them  there. 

Even  at  that,  the  Constitution  is  a  lukewarm  docu 
ment.  In  it  there  are  no  such  burning  words  as  those 
written  by  Thomas  Jefferson  thirteen  years  earlier  and 
published  as  the  Declaration  of  Independence:  "We 
hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident,  that  all  men  are 
created  free  and  equal  and  are  endowed  by  their  Cre 
ator  with  certain  inalienable  rights;  that  among  these 
are  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  That  to 
secure  these  rights,  governments  are  instituted  among 
men,  deriving  their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of 
the  governed ;  that  whenever  any  form  of  government 
becomes  destructive  of  these  ends  it  is  the  right  of 
the  people  to  alter  or  abolish  it,  and  to  institute  a  new 

139 


government,  laying  its  foundations  on  such  principles 
and  organizing  its  power  in  such  form  as  shall  seem 
to  them  most  likely  to  effect  their  safety  and  happi 
ness." 

It  was  not  until  1861,  when  Abraham  Lincoln  deliv 
ered  his  first  inaugural  address,  that  the  right  of  revo 
lution  was  definitely  proclaimed  by  a  responsible  states 
man,  acting  under  the  Constitution.  "This  country," 
Lincoln  said  on  that  occasion,  "with  its  institutions  be 
longs  to  the  people  who  inhabit  it.  Whenever  they 
shall  grow  weary  of  the  existing  government,  they  can 
exercise  their  constitutional  right  of  amendment,  or 
their  revolutionary  right  to  dismember  or  overthrow 
it." 

That  revolutionary  right,  so  clearly  proclaimed  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  and  so  emphatically  stated 
by  Lincoln,  remains  today  the  avenue  left  to  the  Ameri 
can  people  as  a  means  of  escape  from  the  intolerable 
plutocratic  tyranny  that  the  Constitution  has  set  up. 

The  Constitution  is  the  fundamental  law  of  the 
United  States.  It  was  drawn  up  134  years  ago  by  a 
convention  consisting  of  business  men  and  their  lawyer- 
retainers.  It  was  a  document  designed  to  protect  prop 
erty  rights,  and,  through  the  century  and  a  quarter 
that  it  has  endured,  it  has  served  its  purpose  so  well 
that  it  stands  today,  not  only  as  the  chief  bulwark  of 
American  privilege  and  vested  wrong,  but  as  the  great 
est  document  ever  designed  by  man  for  the  safeguard 
ing  of  the  few  in  their  work  of  exploiting  and  robbing 
the  many. 


140 


XI.     LAWYERS 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  made  by 
business  men.  The  work  of  managing  and  directing 
the  government  machinery  that  has  been  erected  in 
pursuance  of  the  Constitution  has  been  placed  almost 
exclusively  in  the  hands  of  lawyers,  who  sit  in  the  leg 
islatures  and  make  the  laws ;  sit  in  the  executive  chairs 
and  enforce  the  laws,  and  sit  on  the  bench  and  interpret 
the  laws. 

Lawyers  dominate  the  city,  state  and  national  gov 
ernments  to  an  astonishing  degree.  In  one  sense,  they 
are  the  Government,  at  least  in  so  far  as  manipulating 
its  machinery  is  concerned.  The  lawyers  have  become 
a  governing  caste  in  the  United  States.  Their  official 
position  is  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  number. 

The  total  number  of  "lawyers,  judges  and  justices," 
as  given  in  the  census  of  1910  (the  latest  one  available 
at  this  writing)  was  114,704.  The  same  volume  of  the 
census  reports  that  there  were  more  than  38,167,000 
gainfully  occupied  persons  in  the  United  States.  That 
would  make  three  lawyers  for  each  1,000  of  the  gain 
fully  occupied  population.  Therefore,  if  the  lawyers  had 
their  proportional  share  of  the  governing  positions, 
they  would  get  less  than  one-third  of  one  per  cent  of 
the  Government  jobs. 

The  actual  situation  is  far  different.  In  the  affairs 
of  government — particularly  of  the  Federal  Govern 
ment — the  lawyer  plays  a  leading  part.  He  is  only  one 
one-three-hundredth  of  the  gainfully  occupied  popula 
tion,  but  he  is  the  majority  of  those  upon  whom  falls 
the  duty  of  making  and  enforcing  the  laws. 

Take  the  situation  in  the  Federal  Congress.  There 
has  never  been  a  time  during  the  fifty  years  that  I 
have  known  Washington  when  the  lawyers  constituted 
less  than  half  of  the  membership  of  both  houses  of 
Congress.  Usually,  they  made  up  two-thirds  of  the 
membership.  The  proportion  varies,  but  the  principle 
holds.  The  present  Congress  (the  65th)  reports  in  the 

141 


House  263  lawyers  out  of  a  total  of  388  who  gave  their 
occupations.  (No  occupations  were  given  for  47.)  In 
the  Senate,  there  are  60  lawyers  out  of  a  total  of  89 
Senators  who  reported  their  occupations.  The  census 
shows  that  the  lawyers  constitute  only  three  in  every 
thousand  of  the  gainful  population.  In  the  Senate,  they 
are  in  the  proportion  of  674  per  thousand;  and  in  the 
House  in  the  proportion  of  677  in  the  thousand.  Thus, 
two-thirds  of  our  national  law-makers  are  lawyers. 

The  same  thing  holds  true  of  our  Presidents.  Since 
the  United  States  has  become  a  government  by  the 
corporations,  their  presidential  candidates  have  almost 
invariably  been  lawyers.  Harrison,  as  President,  was  a 
a  lawyer,  and  reputed  to  be  a  good  one.  He  had  been 
preceded  in  that  high  office  by  Grover  Cleveland,  a 
lawyer  1'rom  Buffalo,  New  York.  Harrison  was  fol 
lowed  by  Cleveland.  Cleveland  was  followed  by  another 
lawyer — McKinley,  who  was  elected  and  assassinated, 
and  thus  Theodore  Roosevelt,  who  was  his  Vice-Presi 
dent,  and  not  a  lawyer,  accidentally  became  President. 
He  was  succeeded  by  another  lawyer,  Taft,  who  was 
not  a  good  lawyer.  He  had  neither  the  judgment  nor 
the  ability  to  make  a  good  lawyer,  and  he  was  therefore 
a  very  satisfactory  representative  of  the  predatory  and 
exploiting  corporations  which,  during  all  of  my  time  in 
public  life,  have  been  the  real  force  in  control  of  the 
Government.  Taft  was  followed  by  Wilson,  a  lawyer, 
and  after  his  eight  years  the  people  elected  Harding, 
another  lawyer — giving  him  a  plurality  of  more  than 
six  million  of  votes. 

There  is  no  question  of  party  politics  involved.  Of 
all  the  Presidents  that  I  have  known,  two  were  Demo 
crats  (Cleveland  and  Wilson)  ;  the  rest  were  Republi 
cans.  With  the  exception  of  Roosevelt,  all  of  them 
since  Garfield  —  and  including  Garneld —  have  been 
lawyers. 

The  lawyers  have  an  even  hiorher  percentage  among 
the  successful  presidential  candidates  than  they  have 
among  the  members  of  Congress. 

142 


When  it  comes  to  the  courts,  the  whole  field  is  in  the 
possession  of  the  lawyers,  who  have  built  up  a  system 
of  exalting  the  law  above  everything  else  in  the  land — 
life,  happiness  and  liberty  included.  They  have  worked 
out  a  "precedent"  under  which  no  one  may  become  a 
judge  unless  he  has  previously  been  a  lawyer.  As  a 
matter  of  practical  fact,  it  is  not  necessary  that  a  judge 
should  be  a  lawyer.  On  the  contrary,  a  lawyer  trained 
under  the  present  system  is  not  fit  to  be  a  judge,  but 
the  thing  has  been  worked  out  in  such  a  way  that  all 
of  the  judges  are  lawyers. 

The  position  of  the  lawyers  in  the  Government  is  ab 
surd  in  view  of  their  small  numerical  importance. 
There  are  only  a  little  more  than  a  hundred  thousand 
of  them  in  a  country  of  more  than  a  hundred  millions, 
yet  they  make  up  more  than  two-thirds  of  the  member 
ship  of  both  houses  of  Congress;  the  majority  of  the 
state  legislatures;  most  of  the  governors;  all  of  the 
prosecuting  attorneys ;  most  of  the  Presidents,  and  all 
of  the  judges.  The  lawyers  enact  the  laws;  interpret 
the  laws  and  enforce  the  laws.  The  Government  is  a 
lawyer-government,  and  we  are  a  lawyer-ridden  coun 
try. 

Then  there  comes  a  question.  If  the  business  men 
of  the  United  States  run  the  Government,  as  I  have 
asserted  that  they  do,  how  comes  it  that  they  are  will 
ing  to  let  the  lawyers  hold  all  of  the  important  public 
positions? 

The  answer  to  that  question  is  very  simple :  Because 
the  lawyers  do  it  so  well ! 

If  the  lawyers  failed  to  do  what  the  business  men 
want  done,  the  business  men  would  soon  put  an  end  to 
their  domination  of  the  political  machinery.  The  law 
yers  know  that  as  well  as  the  business  men.  But  the 
lawyers  are  kept  in  their  present  position  because  they 
are  such  splendid  representatives  of  the  predatory  in 
terests.  A  lawyer,  by  his  training  and  by  his  practice, 
is  calculated  to  serve  the  ruling  class  of  the  country, 
and,  where  the  rulers  can  get  able  servants,  there  is 

143 


no  reason  why  they  should  do  the  work  themselves. 
They  have  ample  resources.  They  can  afford  to  pay, 
and  with  the  lawyers  at  hand  to  do  their  work  they  are 
as  well  served  as  though  they  served  themselves.  The 
lawyers  are  not  experts  in  government,  but  in  debauch 
ing  and  corrupting  and  crippling  the  Government  in  the 
interest  of  those  who  pay  them  their  fees.  So  here 
they  sit,  in  the  legislatures,  in  the  executive  offices  and 
on  the  bench,  running  the  Government  in  the  interest 
of  those  who  are  plundering  the  people. 

Business  interests  support  and  finance  their  lawyer 
handy-men  because  these  lawyers  are  able  to  do  wha ; 
the  business  wrorld  wants  done.  The  lawyers  have  been 
developed  into  a  class  of  professional  manipulators  and 
wreckers  of  Government  machinery  because  they  are 
trained  from  the  outset  to  regard  the  interests  of  their 
clients  as  of  greater  moment  than  the  public  interest. 

A  man,  to  become  a  good  lawyer,  must  have  spent  his 
life  studying  "precedent."  What  is  precedent  but  the 
preservation  of  the  ,status  quo,  and  what  is  the  status 
quo  but  the  wisdom  of  yesterday  ?  The  good  lawyer  is 
therefore  the  lawyer  who  is  able  to  preserve  the  shadow 
of  yesterday  and  use  it  to  darken  the  sunlight  of  today. 

The  good  lawyer,  to  educate  himself,  pores  over  the 
Common  Law  of  England.  When  his  head  is  filled  with 
seventeen  hundred  decisions  handed  down  by  judges 
who  lived  in  the  seventeenth  century,  before  the  Amer 
ican  Colonies  found  the  British  rule  intolerable,  he  fills 
up  the  chinks  of  his  mind  with  Blackstone  and  with 
Kent's  Commentaries.  He  then  studies  what  the  judges 
(lawyers)  of  the  United  States  <said  during  the  past 
hundred  years,  and  after  that  he  is  considered  as  pre 
pared  to  defend  the  interests  of  the  exploiters  of 
America. 

This  precedent-fed  human  being  is  valuable  to  the 
great  interests  for  three  reasons : 

First,  because  his  study  of  precedent  has  rendered 
him  incapable  of  thinking  into  the  future  and  has  thus 
made  him  a  natural  protector  of  things  as  they  are ; 

144 


Second,  because  the  tradition  of  property  rights  in 
herited  from  the  past  can  best  be  preserved  through 
such  a  class  of  "dead-hand"  experts ; 

Third,  because  the  lawyer,  under  the  ethics  of  his 
profession,  is  the  only  man  who  can  take  a  bribe  and 
call  it  a  fee. 

The  real  work  of  the  world  is  done  by  those  who  en 
visage  the  future  and  prepare  for  it.  Such  an  ability  is 
the  first  essential  in  a  statesman,  or  in  any  other  per 
son  who  assumes  to  play  a  role  in  the  direction  of 
human  affairs.  The  lawyer  finds  it  virtually  impossible 
to  look  ahead.  He  has  been  trained  to  move  forward 
with  his  eyes  over  his  shoulder. 

Any  ruling  class,  depending  for  its  profits  on  some 
special  privilege,  like  the  ownership  of  land  or  of  ma 
chinery,  must  see  to  it  that  these  special  privileges  are 
not  interfered  with,  otherwise  its  .source  of  profit  may 
be  destroyed.  At  one  time,  under  the  Feudal  System, 
it  was  the  church  that  acted  as  the  policeman  for  the 
landlord,  keeping  the  tenants  quiet  with  threats  of  dire 
punishment  in  the  hereafter  in  case  they  interfered 
with  the  sacred  person  or  with  the  still  more  sacred 
property  of  their  overlords.  That  function,  at  the  pres 
ent  time,  has  been  taken  over  by  the  lawyers,  who 
threaten  the  penalties  of  criminal  codes  and  of  Espi 
onage  Acts  for  those  who  transgress  the  sacred  pre 
cincts  in  which  the  property  of  their  clients  is  enclosed. 

All  of  this  work  is  done  by  the  simple  method  of  al 
lowing  one  man  for  himself  and  for  his  heirs,  forever, 
certain  corner  lots  and  choice  quarter-sections  without 
which  his  fellows  cannot  continue  to  make  a  living.  The 
world  marches  by  his  door  and,  for  the  privilege  of  so 
doing,  it  pays  the  property-holder  his  rent. 

The  lawyer  has  studied  the  precedents  established 
by  the  land-holding  aristocracy  of  Great  Britain.  From 
them  he  has  derived  the  "common  law,"  and  to  that 
he  has  added  tens  of  thousands  of  pages  of  .statutes 
which  are  designed  to  perfect  the  system  the  land- 

145 


holding  aristocracy  of  Great  Britain  has  worked  so 
hard  to  establish. 

The  traditions  of  English  civilization  are  traditions 
of  wealthy  land-holders  and  manufacturers  and  bank 
ers,  on  the  one  hand,  and  an  overworked,  exploited 
population  of  laborers  on  the  other.  No  one  who  has 
seen  the  condition  of  the  British  workers  can  have  any 
delusions  as  to  the  terrible  way  in  which  they  have  suf 
fered  under  the  "property-first"  system  of  British  so 
ciety.  It  is  this  system  that  is  being  perpetuated  in 
the  United  States,  by  means  of  the  Constitution,  the 
laws,  the  courts  and  the  lawyers,  who  are  the  handy 
men  of  big  business,  in  control  of  every  important 
branch  of  the  public  service. 

The  lawyer  makes  a  good  servant  of  the  ruling  class 
because  he  spends  his  life  making  the  world  believe 
that  the  property  rights  are  more  important  than  the 
human  rights.  Again,  he  is  useful  because  he  may  be 
bribed  at  almost  any  stage  of  his  public  career,  and  may 
accept  the  bribe  without  losing  his  professional  self- 
respect. 

During  the  twelve  years  that  I  was  a  member  of  the 
United  States  Senate,  more  than  two-thirds  of  the 
members  of  both  houses  were  lawyers,  and  those  in 
the  Senate  were  generally  old  lawyers  who  had  spent 
their  lives  in  the  service  of  the  great  interests.  So  far 
as  I  know,  these  lawyers,  in  both  Houses,  never  hesi 
tated  to  take  a  fee  from  any  interest  that  wished  to 
employ  them.  They  satisfied  their  consciences  by  as 
suring  themselves  and  their  friends  that  no  matter 
what  the  size  of  the  fee  it  did  not  influence  their  actions 
as  lawmakers. 

I  know  personally  of  one  Senator  who  received  a  fee 
of  $49,000  for  representing  one  of  the  greatest  of  the 
industrial  combinations  in  a  case  before  a  Federal 
court.  This  man  was  as  honest  a  lawyer  as  I  ever 
knew.  His  vote  could  not  have  been  purchased  for  any 
consideration;  yet  after  he  had  received  the  $49,000 
fee,  if  a  question  had  come  up  which  involved  the  inter- 

146 


ests  of  that  corporation,  or  which  was  in  the  nature  of 
an  attack  upon  it,  it  is  useless  to  insist  that  the  thought 
of  the  fee  would  not  have  had  at  least  some  influence  in 
determining  what  he  should  do  and  how  he  should  vote. 

Senator  Edmunds  of  Vermont  was  chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  the  Judiciary  during  the  twelve  years 
that  I  was  a  member  of  the  United  States  Senate. 
He  reported  the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law  from  that 
Committee.  Afterward,  the  United  States  Govern 
ment  began  a  suit  against  the  Joint  Traffic  Associa 
tion,  which  was  a  combination  of  thirty-two  railroads 
running  west  from  New  York,  on  the  ground  that 
that  combination  was  in  violation  of  the  Sherman 
Anti-Trust  law,  the  suit  having  been  started  before 
Judge  LaComb,  the  Circuit  Judge  of  the  District  of 
New  York.  The  judge  announced  from  the  bench 
that  he  was  disqualified  from  hearing  the  case  be 
cause  he  was  the  owner  of  the  stocks  and  bonds  of 
the  defendant  railroad,  and  he  said,  in  open  court, 
that  he  believed  every  judge  in  the  circuit  was  suf 
fering  from  a  like  disqualification.  The  railroads 
had  put  their  attorneys  on  the  bench.  It  was  finally 
found  that  Judge  Wheeler,  just  appointed  through 
the  influence  of  Senator  Edmunds,  from  the  State  of 
Vermont,  was  not  the  owner  of  stocks  and  bonds  in 
the  defendant  railroads,  and  the  railroads  thereupon 
employed  Edmunds  to  go  before  this  judge — a  crea 
ture  of  his — and  tell  the  judge  that  the  Sherman 
Anti-Trust  Law  was  not  being  violated. 

No  one  knows  how  big  a  fee  Edmunds  received, 
but  it  created  no  comment,  for  it  is  now  well  under 
stood  that  a  lawyer  can  be  bought  and  call  the  pur 
chase  price  of  his  opinions  and  convictions  a  fee. 

In  the  case  of  Foraker,  of  Ohio,  and  Senator  Bailey, 
of  Texas,  the  amount  of  money  paid  them  by  the 
Standard  Oil  Company  was  so  large,  and  the  trans 
action  was  so  under  cover,  that  it  excited  no  great 
amount  of  comment  until  the  newspapers  took  it  up, 

147 


and  then  the  matter  became  so  scandalous  that  the 
public  thought  it  best  to  call  a  halt. 

These  are  only  illustrations.  It  is  a  universal  prac 
tice  among  the  lawyers  of  both  Houses  to  take  a  fee 
from  the  industrial  combinations  whenever  they  can 
get  it,  and  they  boast  among  their  fellow  members 
if  the  fee  is  big  enough  to  be  worth  while. 

This  was  the  practice  during  the  whole  twelve 
years  that  I  was  in  the  Senate. 

From  what  I  have  said  about  the  training  of  law 
yers  it  must  be  apparent  that  a  lawyer  cannot  be  a 
statesman.  First,  because  he  is  trained  to  look  back 
ward  rather  than  forward  and,  second,  because  in 
order  to  be  a  statesman  it  is  necessary  to  have  some 
appreciation  of  the  general  welfare,  and  the  lawyer 
can  only  represent  his  clients  and  assist  them  to  pro 
tect  and  defend  property  rights. 

How  is  it  possible  to  produce  statesmen  under  the 
conditions  that  prevail  in  the  United  States,  or  in  any 
of  the  other  great  capitalist  countries  for  that  mat 
ter?  Under  the  system  the  land,  the  resources,  the 
means  of  transportation  and  the  money  power  are 
handed  over  to  the  favored  few.  They  manipulate 
the  Government,  through  their  agents,  the  lawyers, 
and  thus  the  machinery  that  should  be  employed  to 
feed  and  care  for  the  people  is  employed  for  the  en 
richment  of  the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many.  It 
is  the  lawyers  who  have  acted  as  the  go-between. 
They  have  drawn  the  papers  under  which  the  riches 
of  the  nation  have  been  placed  in  the  hands  of  a 
few,  who  hold  legal  commissions  that  enable  them 
to  rob  the  many.  Under  these  circumstances,  it  is 
not  the  general  welfare  that  is  uppermost  in  the 
minds  of  those  responsible  for  the  direction  of  public 
affairs,  but  the  manipulation  of  public  business  in 
such  a  way  as  to  add  still  more  to  the  power  of  those 
who  hold  the  special  privileges  of  the  nation. 

It  is  only  in  England  and  in  the  United  States  that 

148 


the  people  have  been  satisfied  to  build  up  a  ruling 
class — the  lawyers — and  to  put  into  their  hands  all 
branches  of  the  Government. 

The  people  of  Russia  have  provided  in  their  con 
stitution  that  every  person  over  eighteen  years  of  age 
can  vote  if  they  are  engaged  in  some  useful  employ 
ment,  and  have  thus,  in  my  opinion,  disfranchised  the 
lawyer,  for  a  lawyer  spends  the  first  half  of  his  life 
over  the  past,  and  the  last  half  of  his  life  trying  to 
apply  the  past  to  the  present,  and  lets  the  future  go 
to  hell ;  and  I  submit  this  is  not  a  useful  occupation. 

Lawyers  should  be  excluded  from  the  bench  and 
from  every  legislative  assembly.  A  well-trained  law 
yer  is  unfitted  for  doing  anything  else  except  defend 
ing  the  cases  that  he  is  hired  to  defend,  and  he 
should  be  compelled  to  stick  to  that.  Above  all,  he 
should  not  be  entrusted  with  any  share  in  the  direc 
tion  of  public  affairs. 


149 


XII.    POLITICS. 

Like  most  American  boys  I  had  been  brought  up 
to  believe  that  the  United  States  had  a  government 
of  the  people,  by  the  people  and  for  the  people.  My 
first  real  impressions  to  the  contrary  were  obtained 
during  my  early  experiences  with  Dakota  politics. 
There  I  learned  how  the  machinery  of  government  is 
manipulated  in  the  interest  of  those  who  are  behind 
it  and  I  learned  something  about  the  manipulator,^ 

"Carpet-bag  officials,"  as  we  used  to  call  them, 
held  the  important  offices  in  Dakota,  while  it  was 
still  a  territory.  The  governors  and  other  territorial 
officers  were  appointed  by  the  President  and  con 
firmed  by  the  Senate  at  Washington.  Frequently 
these  appointees  lived  thousands  of  miles  from  the 
territory  in  which  they  were  appointed  to  serve  anil 
in  many  instances  they  had  never  set  foot  in  these 
territories  until  they  arrived  to  take  up  their  official 
duties. 

A  territory  is  entitled  to  a  "delegate"  in  the  House 
of  Representatives.  The  delegate  has  a  seat,  but  no 
vote.  He  may  sit  on  the  floor;  listen  to  the  phrase- 
makers  of  the  House;  watch  the  proceedings;  intro 
duce  bills;  appear  before  committees  to  urge  the  in 
terests  of  his  territory  and  perform  such  committee 
work  as  the  House  may  choose  to  assign.  The  dele 
gate  may  also  advise  as  to  the  appointment  of  local 
people  such  as  postmasters  and,  in  some  instances, 
if  he  is  in  political  sympathy  with  the  President,  he 
may  secure  the  appointment  of  a  citizen  of  the  ter 
ritory  to  a  Federal  post  such  as  the  land  office.  That, 
however,  is  very  unusual. 

In  1880  I  was  nominated  for  the  position  of  dele 
gate  by  the  Republicans  of  the  territory  of  Dakota, 
which  at  that  time  embraced  what  are  now  the  two 
states  of  North  and  South  Dakota.  It  had  an  area 
of  about  150,000  square  miles,  with  about  30,000  or 
35,000  Indians  included  in  its  population.  When  I 

150 


went  to  Dakota  in  1869  there  were  only  14,000  peo 
ple  in  the  whole  territory  outside  of  the  Indian  popu 
lation,  but  in  1880  railroads  were  building  all  over 
Dakota  and  the  population  was  increasing  with  great 
rapidity.  After  my  nomination,  I  entered  actively 
into  the  campaign,  visiting  the  small  towns  and  mak 
ing  speeches. 

Meanwhile  President  Hayes  had  appointed  as  gov 
ernor  of  the  Territory  of  Dakota  a  citizen  of  New 
Hampshire  named  N.  G.  Ordway.  During  the  sum 
mer  preceding  the  election,  Ordway  came  out  to  Da 
kota  and  took  possession  of  the  office.  Ordway  had 
been  for  twenty-years  Sergeant-at-Arms  of  the  House 
of  Representatives,  but  in  1878,  when  the  Democrats 
got  control  of  the  House,  he  was  ousted  from  his 
position.  Bill  Chandler,  who  was  factotum  of  the 
Republican  Party  for  New  Hampshire,  secured  Ord- 
way's  appointment  as  Governor  of  Dakota  so  that 
he  might  go  out  there,  have  the  state  admitted  into 
the  Union  and  then  become  one  of  the  Senators.  I 
watched  the  Governor's  actions  with  a  great  deal  of 
interest.  His  attitude  towards  the  people  of  Dakota 
was  extremely  patronizing,  and  he  talked  about  the 
people  of  Daktoa  as  though,  in  his  eyes,  they  were 
simply  children  entitled  to  his  benevolent  considera 
tion.  I  soon  found  out  that  he  was  preparing  to 
carry  out  the  political  program  that  had  been 
mapped  out  for  him.  For  example,  he  was  reported 
as  being  engaged  in  filling  a  car  with  the  products 
of  Dakota  with  the  idea  of  sending  it  through  the 
eastern  States  as  a  means  of  inducing  the  emigrants 
or  settlers  to  come  out  to  Dakota  and  enter  lands  on 
the  public  domain. 

Finally  he  announced  that  he  had  arranged  with 
the  railroads  to  carry  this  car  without  charge  and 
had  selected  certain  Dakota  citizens  to  accompany 
it.  It  was  also  stated  that  the  Governor  had  se 
cured  some  of  the  very  finest  samples  of  corn,  pump- 

151 


kins,  oats  and  other  agricultural  products  from  west 
ern  Iowa  and  eastern  Nebraska,  placed  them  in  the 
car  and  proposed  to  represent  them  as  the  products 
of  Dakota.  When  questioned  about  this  he  said,  "Of 
course,  Dakota  is  new,  and  agriculture  is  not  far  ad 
vanced,  but  we  all  know  that  we  can  produce  just 
such  products,  and  therefore  it  is  proper  to  repre 
sent  that  we  have  produced  them,  in  order  to  induce 
the  settlers  to  come  to  Dakota  and  enter  land."  And 
this  episode  disgusted  me,  and  in  some  of  my 
speeches  I  made  fun  of  the  Governor's  antics  and 
alluded  to  him  as  the  "Siox  Chief/'  because  having 
pronounced  the  word  "Sioux"  as  Siox,  and  alluded 
to  the  town  in  which  I  lived  as  "Siox  Falls." 

After  the  campaign  was  over  I  went  to  Yankto:i 
on  some  business,  and  Newton  Edmunds,  who  had 
been  Governor  of  Dakota  before  I  went  to  the  Ter 
ritory,  and  who  in  1880  was  a  banker  at  Yanktor, 
called  on  me  at  my  hotel  and  advised  me  to  see  Gov 
ernor  Ordway  before  I  left  town.  Edmunds  told  me 
that  the  Governor  was  very  much  offended  at  the  al 
lusions  I  had  made  in  my  speeches,  and  had  said  that 
unless  I  came  and  apologized,  he  would  not  issue 
my  certificate  of  election  as  a  delegate  in  Congress. 

I  immediately  told  ex-Governor  Edmunds, — he  was 
a  man  of  excellent  parts,  of  fair  ability  and  strict 
integrity,  —  that  if  that  was  Ordway's  attitude  I 
would  rather  reaffirm  what  I  had  said  about  him,  and 
that  under  no  circumstances  would  I  call  upon  him, 
but  would  leave  it  for  him  to  decide  whether  to  per 
form  his  duty  as  Governor  and  issue  the  certificate  of 
election,  or  to  betray  his  office  in  order  to  punish  a 
political  rival.  I  added  that  I  rather  thought  his 
failure  to  perform  his  duty  would  not  keep  me  from 
getting  my  seat  in  the  House  of  Representatives. 
Before  the  4th  of  the  following  March,  when  I  would 
take  my  seat  in  the  House,  I  received  my  certificate 
of  Election  from  the  Governor  without  comment,  but 

152 


J  was  told  by  friends  in  Yankton  that  the  Governor 
remarked  when  he  issued  the  certificate  that  he 
guessed  I  might  as  well  have  it,  as  I  would  not 
amount  to  anything  in  Washington ;  I  would  be  noth 
ing  but  a  wall  flower,  he  said,  while  he  wrould 
control  the  patronage  ordinarily  granted  to  a  dele 
gate  from  a  territory.  When  I  finally  reached  Wash 
ington,  I  found  that  South  Dakota  Post  Office  ap 
pointments  were  being  made  on  the  Governor's  re 
commendation.  At  least  one  had  been  confirmed  at 
an  Indian  Agency.  I  at  once  insisted  that  the  Post 
master  General  remove  Ordway's  appointee  and  put 
in  his  place  a  man  whom  I  recommended.  The 
Postmaster  General  was  reluctant  to  do  this  be 
cause  Ordway  had  been  very  prominent  in  republi 
can  politics  and  knew  all  of  the  leading  men  in  the 
nation.  He  had  also  been  the  representative  of  the 
predatory  interests,  the  railroads,  the  public  utilities 
generally,  the  contractors,  etc.,  about  Washington, 
and  he  had  acted,  while  Sergeant-at-Arms,  as  their 
go-between  in  the  purchase  of  votes  and  the  control 
of  the  lawyers  who  made  up  the  bulk  of  members 
in  the  House  of  Representatives.  Of  course,  the 
"bribe"  always  took  the  form  of  a  "fee."  Because 
of  his  intimate  acquaintance  with  their  deals,  Ord 
way  was  feared  by  the  politicans,  and  the  Postmaster 
General  finally  refused  to  comply  with  my  request. 

The  Post  Office  Department  relies  upon  a  delegate 
to  recommend  certain  things  that  should  be  done  in 
the  territory  that  he  represents,  and  I  told  the  Post 
master  General  that  I  certainly  would  take  no  part 
whatever  in  trying  to  promote  and  protect  the  in 
terests  of  the  Government  with  regard  to  mail  routes, 
etc.,  or  ever  visit  his  department  again  unless  I  was 
accorded  the  full  recognition  which  belonged  to  a 
delegate,  and  so  the  matter  rested  until  Congress 
convened.  When  Congress  met  I  went  to  Senator 
Platt,  of  New  York,  with  whom  I  was  well  acquainted, 

153 


told  him  of  the  controversy  that  had  arisen  over 
South  Dakota  patronage  between  N.  G.  Ordway,  as 
governor  and  me  as  delegate  and  asked  him  to  have 
the  Postmaster  General  recognize  me  as  the  Repre 
sentative  of  Dakota  instead  of  N.  G.  Ordway.  Platt 
at  once  said,  "Yes,  you  are  entitled  to  that  recogni 
tion.  The  Postmaster  General  is  from  my  State.  I 
suppose  I  endorsed  him  for  the  position,  but  Ordway 
has  been  to  see  me  about  this  matter  and  he  is  a  very 
powerful  factor  in  Republican  politics,  besides  beirg 
very  competent  as  a  political  manipulator.  Now, 
you  are  a  young  man  and  he  is  a  man  of  great  ex 
perience;  why  don't  you  get  together?"  I  told  Sen 
ator  Platt  that  was  very  difficult  because  of  the  Gov 
ernor's  statement  that  he  would  not  issue  my  certi 
ficate  of  election  unless  I  would  apologize  to  him  for 
what  I  had  said  about  him,  my  reply  was  that  I  would 
never  do  it. 

In  a  day  or  two,  however,  Senator  Platt  asked  if 
I  would  receive  and  talk  with  the  Governor  if  he 
called  upon  me.  I  told  him  I  would,  and  thereupon 
I  made  an  appointment  through  Senator  Platt  for 
Ordway  to  see  me  at  my  hotel  the  next  evening. 

The  Governor  arrived  in  due  time,  I  took  him  to 
my  room  and  he  opened  the  conversation  by  saying 
that  he  was  an  old  and  experienced  politician  and 
had  been  in  public  life  for  many  years;  that  I  was  a 
young  man  just  starting  out,  but  that  I  gave  great 
promise  for  the  future,  and  that  he  was  anxious  to 
form  a  political  alliance  with  me  to  take  control  of 
the  political  affairs  of  the  Territory  of  Dakota.  He 
then  proceeded,  by  way  of  argument  and  advice,  to 
say  that  if  I  would  consult  him  about  all  my  appoint 
ments  as  delegate  he  would  consult  with  me  about 
his  appointments  as  governor,  and  that  by  thus  com 
bining  our  influence  and  working  in  harmony,  we 
could  become  so  strong  and  influential  as  to  elect 

154 


each  other  to  the  United  States  Senate,  when  the  ter 
ritory  of  Dakota  was  admitted  as  a  state. 

After  he  had  completed  his  argument  I  said,  "Gov 
ernor,  this  is  the  first  time  I  have  ever  met  you.  I 
was  not  impressed  by  what  I  knew  of  you  before  this 
meeting.  We  are  here  with  the  idea  of  perfecting 
some  kind  of  an  alliance  by  which  we  can  work  in 
political  harmony.  As  things  stand  now,  that  would 
be  very  difficult.  I  have  a  suggestion,  however. 
Suppose  you  go  back  to  Dakota  and  attend  to  your 
duties  as  governor,  while  I  look  after  the  duties  of 
my  office  here,  in  such  a  way  as  to  promote  the  wel 
fare  of  the  people  of  Dakota.  If  you  will  do  that, 
and  use  your  office  to  promote  the  interests  of  South 
Dakota  and  its  people,  without  consulting  me  at  all, 
you  will  become  so  popular  with  the  people  and  so 
strong  politically  that  you  will  easily  be  the  most 
prominent  man  in  the  territory.  If  you  make  a  good, 
honest  and  capable  Governor,  and  I  make  a  good, 
honest  and  capable  delegate  in  Congress,  the  time 
will  not  be  distant  when  we  will  naturally  work  to 
gether, — our  common  purpose  being  the  welfare  of 
the  people." 

The  governor  did  not  take  to  that  advice.  He  had 
never  done  anything  that  way  and  probably  did 
not  understand  what  I  meant.  He  seemed  to  con 
clude  that  I  talked  that  way  because  I  wanted  to 
make  money,  so  he  started  on  another  tack. 

"You  know,"  said  Ordway,  "I,  as  Governor,  have 
the  right  to  appoint  the  Commissioners  of  every  new 
county  that  is  organized.  These  commissioners  can 
locate  the  county  seat  of  the  county,  and  therefore 
there  is  always  great  competition  among  the  citi 
zens  of  a  county  to  secure  these  appointments  so 
that  they  can  locate  the  county-seat  town.  You 
know  there  are  a  great  number  of  new  counties  be 
ing  organized  every  year  all  over  Dakota.  Now,  if 
you  and  I  will  go  in  together,  we  can  so  manipulate 

155 


the  organization  of  these  counties  as  to  get  part  of 
the  land  upon  which  the  county-seat  is  located,  or 
else  we  can  make  the  people  pay  high  who  have 
land  on  which  they  want  the  county  seat  located. 

"Besides  that,  there  is  something  even  bigger. 
People  want  a  new  capitol  city  for  the  territory.  By 
uniting  together  we  might  easily  arrange  to  move  the 
capitol  from  its  present  location  at  Yanktown  to 
some  more  central  location,  and  make  a  fortune  out 
of  building  the  new  city." 

I  let  the  Governor  go  on  developing  his  whola 
scheme,  together  with  his  method  of  achieving  it. 
He  seemed  very  enthusiastic  and  acted  as  though  ha 
were  well  satisfied  with  himself  and  with  the  impres 
sions  that  he  had  made.  But  when  he  had  finished, 
I  said :  "The  Territory  of  Dakota  is  about  400  miles 
square,  but  it  is  altogether  too  small  for  both  of  us. 
Either  you  will  have  to  get  out  of  it  or  I  will.  I  will 
never  have  anything  to  do  with  you  but  will  fight  you 
as  long  as  you  remain  in  the  territory.  You  are  th<> 
most  miserable  corrupt  scamp  that  in  my  brief  career 
I  have  ever  come  in  contact  with." 

The  next  morning  I  called  on  Senator  Platt  and 
told  him,  in  detail,  just  what  had  occurred.  Platt 
made  no  comment  except  to  say  that  he  would  have 
the  Postmaster  removed  that  Ordway  had  had  ap 
pointed,  and  would  ask  the  Postmaster  General  to 
put  in  whomever  I  recommended. 

Upon  inquiring  with  regard  to  the  Governor  and 
his  career  as  Sergeant-at-Arms  at  the  House,  I  found 
that  when  the  Democrats  had  got  control  in  1878  and 
had  removed  Ordway  from  the  position  as  Sergeant- 
at-Arms,  they  had  appointed  a  Committee  to  investi 
gate  the  conduct  of  the  office  of  Sergeant-at-Arms 
under  Ordway's  regime.  The  conduct  of  the  investi 
gation  was  in  the  hands  of  Glover,  who,  I  think,  was 
from  Missouri.  I  thereupon  secured  from  Glover  a 
copy  of  the  testimony  taken  by  the  Committee  and 

156 


of  the  report  that  the  Committee  had  made  to  the 
House.  The  testimony  showed  that  Ordway  was  the 
person  who  carried  the  funds  that  were  used  to  per 
suade  the  members  of  the  House  to  grant  privileges 
to  the  few  in  order  that  they  might  rob  the  many. 
That  custom  has  been  continued  ever  since  at  Wash 
ington  in  both  Houses  of  Congress.  While  I  was  in 
the  Senate,  Aldrich  of  Rhode  Island,  who  was  Sen 
ator,  held  this  important  post.  He  died  worth,  I  be 
lieve,  twenty  millions.  Others  have  done  similar 
work.  There  always  are  in  Washington  certain 
agents  of  big  business,  employed  to  look  after  the 
attorneys  in  both  houses  who  are  there  to  represent 
the  great  industrial,  financial,  and  transportation  cor 
porations — the  real  government. 

I  also  wrote  the  Chairman  of  the  House  Committee 
that  investigated  Ordway  and  he  sent  me  the  following 
letter  which  I  published  with  a  copy  of  the  testimony 
taken  by  the  Committee: 

"La  Grange,  Mo.,  July  24,  1881. 
"Hon.  R.  F.  Pettigrew,  M.  C. 
"My  Dear  Sir: 

"Your  letter  of  the  17th  came  duly  to  hand. 
You  refer  to  N.  G.  Ordway,  ex-sergeant-at- 
arms  of  the  house  of  representatives,  and  at 
present  governor  of  Dakota  territory,  and  ask, 
'If  he  ever  answered  the  damaging  evidence 
taken  before  your  (my)  committee  to  your 
(my)  satisfaction.'  I  answer  emphatically, 
No !  It  was  impossible  for  him  to  make  sat 
isfactory  answer.  I  have  no  hesitancy  in 
giving  it  as  my  opinion,  in  view  of  all  the  evi 
dence  developed  against  him,  that  he  is  one 
of  the  most  corrupt  and  unprincipled  men 
that  ever  disgraced  and  degraded  the  public 
service  of  this  country-  I  am  convinced  that 
he  never  sought  or  held  an  office  with  a  view 

157 


of  being  satisfied  with  its  honors  and  its  legi 
timate  emoluments,  but  to  prostrate  it  to  the 
worst  jobbery  and  fraud  for  money  making. 
"It  would  seem  simply  impossible  for  N.  G. 
Ordway  to  hold  an  official  position  and  not 
taint  and  disgrace  it.  He  belongs  to  a  class 
of  office  seekers  that  infest  this  country  now 
by  thousands,  that  should  be  doomed  to  de 
struction  by  the  efforts  of  all  honest  men  of 
all  parties.  I  am,  sir,  very  respectfully  your 
obedient  servant, 

"J.  M.  GLOVER." 

Had  the  Republicans  continued  in  power,  Ordway 
would  have  continued  to  operate  in  the  House. 
When  the  Democrats  came  in,  they  decided  to  have 
one  of  their  own  men  do  his  work.  Consequently 
they  staged  an  investigation  which  cost  Ordway  his 
job  in  the  House,  but  which,  far  from  destroying 
his  public  career,  left  him  free  to  launch  new  schemes 
among  the  men  on  the  frontier. 

After  our  meeting  in  Washington  Ordway  went 
back  to  Dakota  and  tried  his  hand  at  being  governor. 
He  entered  into  a  scheme  to  move  the  capitol,  and 
secured  the  passage  through  the  Legislature  of  a  bill 
establishing  a  Capitol  Commission  to  go  about  and 
receive  bids  for  the  location  of  the  capitol  and  its 
removal  from  Yankton.  His  purpose,  of  course,  was 
to  locate  the  capitol  somewhere  in  about  the  center 
of  the  southern  half  of  Dakota.  Alexander  McKin- 
?ey,  who  lived  in  Bismarck,  in  the  center  of  the  north 
half  of  the  Territory,  was  a  person  having  very  many 
times  the  ability  of  Ordway  and  was  far  his  superior 
in  integrity, — a  man  of  very  many  powerful  parts. 
He  had  managed  to  capture  Ordway's  Capitol  Com 
mission  and  to  locate  the  capitol  at  Bismarck,  which 
is  now  the  capitol  of  North  Dakota. 

Ordway  got  nothing  out  of  that  scheme,  but  he 
was  actively  organizing  new  counties  all  over  Dakota 

158 


and  the  air  was  full  of  rumors  of  scandals.  Finally, 
he  received  $10,000  in  money  to  appoint  a  Commis 
sioner  in  a  county  where  the  county-seat  location 
was  of  considerable  importance.  This  performance 
was  so  scandalous  and  barefaced  that  he  was  in 
dicted  for  bribery  and  corruption  by  a  Grand  Jury 
of  one  of  the  counties,  and  his  case  came  up  before 
Territorial  Judge  Edgerton,  who  had  been  appointed 
through  the  influence  of  Senator  Davis  of  Minnesota. 
Edgerton  was  an  honest  man — more  honest  than  is 
the  rule  among  lawyers.  I  do  not  believe  he  could 
have  been  persuaded  by  money  to  violate  his  judicial 
oath  or  do  any  act  not  in  strict  accordance  with  the 
duties  of  his  office. 

The  Governor  was  evidently  very  much  alarmed. 
He  employed  Senator  Davis,  of  Minnesota,  who  had 
been  responsible  for  having  Edgerton  appointed 
judge,  to  defend  him.  Davis  was  not  a  criminal 
lawyer,  but  in  those  days  the  fee  of  $10,000,  which 
Ordway  offered  Davis,  was  rather  tempting,  so  Davis 
went  out  to  Dakota  when  the  case  was  called,  and 
told  the  judge  that  it  should  be  dismissed  because 
the  only  punishment  that  could  be  meted  out  for 
crimes  committed  by  a  Governor  was  an  impeach 
ment  and  removal  from  office.  The  judge  ruled  that 
such  was  the  law  and  the  case  against  Ordway  was 
dismissed.  The  episode  convinced  Ordway  that 
even  160,000  square  miles  of  territory  was  too  small 
an  area  for  both  of  us  to  live  on  and  so  he  left 
Dakota  and  came  back  to  Washington. 

However,  in  1882  Ordway  made  the  greatest  fight 
of  his  life  to  defeat  me  for  the  Republican  nomina 
tion  for  delegate  in  Congress.  North  and  South 
Dakota  were  already  divided  as  the  people  of  each 
half  had  come  to  believe  that  when  Dakota  ceased 
to  be  a  territory  it  would  be  admitted  as  two  separate 
states  into  the  Union.  In  this  campaign  North  Da 
kota  put  up  a  candidate,  John  B.  Raymond,  who  was 

159 


the  United  States  Marshal,  a  young  man  of  excellent 
principles,  who  had  been  appointed  by  the  President 
and  sent  out  from  some  eastern  state.  Raymond 
carried  most  of  the  Counties  of  North  Dakota,  and 
they  endorsed  him  for  my  position. 

In  South  Dakota  Ordway  put  up  George  B.  Hand, 
from  Yankton,  who  had  been  Secretary  of  the  Ter 
ritory.  He  was  a  man  of  ordinary  intelligence,  but 
he  always  agreed  with  everybody  and  was  affable 
and  suave.  Hand  made  a  poor  showing.  I  carried 
almost  every  county  in  South  Dakota  and  I  had  an 
overwhelming  majority  of  the  whole  territory,  but 
Ordway  contested  nearly  every  county  that  I  carried. 
He  did  not  try  to  contest  the  county  in  which  I  lived 
or  the  adjoining  counties  east  and  west  of  where  I 
lived.  He  contested  Moody  County  where  my 
brother  lived,  although  there  were  not  over  three 
members  of  the  county  convention  against  me,  but 
those  three  felt  that  they  had  been  beaten  by  fraud. 
The  same  practice  was  pursued  in  almost  all  the 
counties  of  South  Dakota,  so  that  the  uncontested 
delegates  from  South  Dakota,  who  were  controlled 
by  Ordway,  united  with  those  which  Raymond  had 
from  North  Dakota  and  made  a  majority  in  ths  pre 
liminary  organization  of  the  Convention.  They  then 
selected  a  committee  on  credentials,  a  majority  of 
whose  members  were  my  political  enemies.  That 
committee  proceeded  to  seat  all  of  the  contesting 
Ordway  delegates,  knowing  that  my  delegates  would 
immediately  form  another  convention  and  nominate 
me.  This  would  have  split  the  Republican  party 
of  the  Territory  into  three  parts  and  would  have 
resulted  in  the  selection  of  a  Democrat. 

I  went  to  their  candidate,  John  B.  Raymond,  from 
North  Dakota,  and  said  to  him,  "You  know  that  Ord 
way  is  not  a  friend  of  yours,  and  that  if  he  gets  con 
trol  of  this  convention  he  will  not  nominate  you, 
although  you  have  united  with  him  against  me  as  a 

160 


common  enemy.  Now  if  you  will  agree  to  have  the 
Committee  on  Credentials  seat  the  delegates  who  are 
elected  and  were  fraudulently  contested,  I  will  go 
into  the  convention  and  withdraw  as  a  candidate  in 
your  favor." 

"If  I  do/'  Raymond  replied,  "you  will  have  a  ma 
jority  of  the  whole  convention  and  can  proceed  to 
nominate  yourself."  "Of  course,"  I  said,  "you  will 
have  to  take  my  word  for  that." 

"Well,"  said  Raymond,  "if  you  will  have  McKinsey 
guarantee  that  you  will  do  as  you  say — and  McKin- 
sey  is  the  most  prominent  man  in  Republican  politics 
in  North  Dakota  and  is  my  friend — I  will  take  your 
promise  and  McKinsey's  guarantee  and  do  as  you 
request." 

McKinsey  promptly  agreed  to  the  arrangement 
and  I  then  assembled  all  of  my  delegates  in  a  room  at 
Grand  Forks,  a  little  town  in  North  Dakota  where 
the  Convention  was  held,  and  told  them  what  I  had 
offered  to  do. 

"In  the  interests  of  harmony,"  I  told  them,  "and 
for  the  purpose  of  rebuking  this  corrupt  carpet-bag 
Governor,  I  think  it  is  the  wise  thing  to  do." 

They  were  unanimous  in  accepting  my  view  of  the 
matter. 

"All  of  you  who  were  contested  will  be  seated,"  I 
said,  "and  we  will  take  control  of  the  party  ma 
chinery,  but  the  success  of  the  scheme  depends  upon 
our  keeping  it  to  ourselves.  Now,  there  are  140  of 
you  fellows.  I  don't  believe  there  is  a  man  among 
you  who  will  tell." 

They  promised  that  they  would  not  say  anything 
and  that  they  would  carry  it  out. 

The  Committee  on  Credentials  submitted  their  re 
port  to  the  Convention,  with  a  minority  report,  in 
favor  of  seating  my  delegates.  When  the  vote  was 
taken,  the  North  Dakota  delegates  voted  unani 
mously  in  favor  of  the  minority  report.  County  after 

161 


county,  as  the  roll  was  called,  voted  this  way.  Ord- 
way  himself  came  into  the  Convention,  in  great  ex 
citement,  and  rushed  among  the  delegates,  exclaim 
ing,  "You  are  voting  wrong;  you  don't  understand 
what  you  are  doing;  you  are  voting  for  the  wrong 
report."  But  he  made  no  impression. 

After  the  vote  was  announced,  I  arose  in  the  Con 
vention  and  said,  "In  the  interests  of  harmony  and 
to  prevent  the  disrupting  of  the  Republican  party 
in  Dakota,  I  conclude  that  it  is  best  for  me  to  with 
draw  from  the  contest.  I  therefore  do  so  and  I  nom 
inate  John  B.  Raymond  as  delegate  to  Congress  and 
thus  rebuke  the  miserable,  contemptible  and  fraudu 
lent  scheme  which  had  been  perpetrated  by  our  car 
pet-bag  Governor,  the  'Siox  Chief.'  ' 

The  plan  worked  perfectly.  Not  a  single  one  of 
the  hundred  and  forty  delegates  had  told  what  was 
to  be 'done,  and  the  Ordway  crowd  had  no  chance  to 
prepare  a  counter  offensive.  Raymond  was  almost 
unanimously  nominated  as  territorial  delegate  to 
Congress.  Of  course,  a  majority  of  my  friends  were 
placed  on  each  of  the  party  committees  selected 
for  the  Country,  and  my  friends  were  selected  as 
chairmen  in  all  cases.  Ordway  had  had  some  mea 
sure  of  revenge.  I  lost  my  place  in  Congress,  but 
gained  control  of  the  Party.  The  episode  lost  him 
both  standing  and  popularity. 

This  story  of  political  intrigue  in  a  sparsely  settled 
mid-western  territory  is  not  unique.  It  could  be 
matched,  in  every  essential  detail,  out  of  the  political 
experiences  of  men  in  every  state  of  the  Union.  That 
is  why  I  tell  it — because  it  is  so  general  in  its  applica 
tion.  But  more  important  than  that,  I  tell  it  because 
it  reveals  some  of  the  forces  that  were  at  work  under 
neath  the  surface  of  the  machinery  of  government. 

There  was  ambition,  of  course,  and  trickery,  and 
jealousy,  and  revenge;  but  beneath  and  beyond  these 
personal  traits  there  were  the  economic  forces  that 

162 


have  played  so  large  a  part  in  shaping  the  Govern 
ment  of  the  United  States.  The  men  who  exhibited 
the  greatest  abilities  and  who  displayed  the  most 
faculties  were  selected  and  used  as  the  tools  and 
spokesmen  of  big  business.  Bribery  and  corruption 
were  not  crimes — unless  they  became  too  blatant. 
Ordinarily  they  were  businesses  in  which  the  capital 
was  furnished  by  the  "interests"  and  the  work  was 
performed  by  officials  sworn  to  uphold  and  defend 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

Later  in  my  political  experience  I  was  to  learn  that 
the  whole  structure  of  our  government,  from  the 
Constitution  onward,  had  been  framed  by  business 
men  to  further  business  ends;  that  the  laws  had  been 
passed  by  the  legislatures  and  interpreted  by  the 
courts  with  this  end  in  view ;  that  the  execution  of  the 
laws  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  executives  known  to 
be  safe  and  that  these  things  were  more  true  of  the 
national  than  they  were  of  local  and  state  political 
machinery. 


163 


XIII.     THE  UNITED  STATES  SUPREME  COURT 

The  Convention  of  1787  that  framed  the  Consti 
tution  of  the  United  States  was  dominated  by  law 
yers,  money-lenders  and  land  owners.  It  did  its  work 
behind  closed  doors,  all  members  being  sworn  not 
to  disclose  any  of  the  proceedings. 

Madison  reported  the  proceedings  in  long-hand; 
his  notes  were  purchased  by  Congress  and  published 
in  1837,  nearly  half  a  century  after  the  convention 
had  finished  its  work.  These  published  notes  dis 
close  the  forces  that  dominated  the  work  of  the  con 
vention.  All  through  the  debates  ran  one  theme: 
how  to  secure  a  government,  not  by  the  people  for 
the  people,  but  by  the  classes  for  the  classes,  with 
the  lawyers  in  control.  This  was  the  burden  of  the 
debates,  page  after  page,  through  all  of  the  760 
pages  of  the  two  volumes  of  Madison  Notes. 

The  Constitution  thus  framed  did  not  create  a  gov 
ernment  of  the  people;  its  whole  purpose  was  to  pro 
mote  and  protect  the  rights  of  property  more  than 
the  rights  of  man.  Two  extracts  from  those  pro 
ceedings  illustrate  this  point;  they  are  typical,  and 
are  as  follows : 

P.  78.  Sherman  of  Connecticut  said :  "The 
people  should  have  as  little  to  do  as  may  be 
about  the  Government.  They  want  infor 
mation  and  are  constantly  liable  to  be  mis 
led." 

Gerry,  of  Massachusetts:  "The  evil  we 
experience  flows  from  the  excess  of  democ 
racy/' 

P.  115.  Mr.  Gerry:  "Hence  in  Massa 
chusetts  the  worst  men  get  into  the  legis 
lature.  Several  members  of  that  body  had 
lately  been  convicted  of  infamous  crimes. 
Men  of  indigence,  ignorance  and  baseness 

164 


spare  no  pains,  however  dirty,  to  carry  their 
point  against  men  who  are  superior  to  the 
artifices  practiced." 

Jefferson  was  not  a  member  of  the  convention. 
He  was  the  author  of  the  Declaration  of  Indepen 
dence;  he  was  not  wanted,  so  he  was  sent  to  France. 

There  were  55  delegates  in  that  convention.  Let 
us  see  who  they  were:  A  majority  were  lawyers; 
most  of  them  came  from  towns ;  not  one  farmer,  me 
chanic  or  laborer;  five-sixths  had  property  interests. 
Of  the  55  members,  40  owned  Revolutionary  scrip ; 
14  were  land  speculators;  24  were  money-lenders; 
11  were  merchants;  15  were  slave-holders.  Wash 
ington  was  a  slave-holder,  a  large  land-owner,  and  a 
holder  of  much  Revolutionary  scrip. 

WHAT  THE  CONSTITUTION  DOES  NOT  CONTAIN 

It  is  not  strange  that  the  Constitution  as  framed 
by  that  convention  said  nothing  about  the  rights  of 
man.  It  was  made  by  men  who  believed  in  the  Eng 
lish  theory  of  government — that  all  governments  are 
created  to  protect  the  rights  of  property  in  the  hands 
of  those  who  do  not  produce  the  property. 

Revolutionary  scrip  was  issued  to  finance  the 
Revolution,  and  used  to  pay  for  supplies  and  the 
wages  of  the  men  who  did  the  fighting;  it  had  been 
bought  up  by  the  financiers  and  great  land-owners 
and  their  attorneys  for  about  nine  cents  on  the  dollar. 
When  the  Constitution  was  adopted,  it  was  made,  at 
once,  worth  one  hundred  cents  on  the  dollar. 

Thus  a  Constitution  was  made,  by  property  in 
terests,  for  property  interests  alone.  The  great  "Bill 
of  Rights"  had  been  thrown  into  the  wastebasket. 

Jefferson  was  in  France. 

THE  TEN  AMENDMENTS  TO  THE  CONSTITUTION 

Against  the  Constitution,  as  thus  framed,  seven 

of  the  thirteen  states  protested,  but  five  of  them  were 

165 


finally  induced  to  ratify  in  reliance  upon  the  "Bill 
of  Rights"  being  promptly  added  by  amendments. 
The  first  eight  amendments  were  speedily  formulated 
and  soon  the  ninth  and  tenth  were  added,  to  be  sub 
mitted  by  the  first  Congress  to  the  States,  and  that 
was  promptly  done.  It  is  certain  that  the  Constitu 
tion  could  never  have  been  adopted  without  these 
amendments  for  the  protection  of  fundamental  hu 
man  rights. 

Thomas   Jefferson   had   returned   from   France. 

AMENDMENT  I. 

The  First  Amendment  is  as  follows : 

"Congress  shall  make  no  law  respecting 
an  establishment  of  religion,  or  prohibiting 
free  exercise  thereof;  or  abridging  the  free 
dom  of  speech,  or  of  the  press,  or  of  the 
right  of  the  people  peaceably  to  assemble, 
and  to  petition  the  Government  for  a  re 
dress  of  grievances." 

It  is  amazing  that  this  great  basic  principle  of  civil 
and  religious  liberty  should  have  been  left  out  of  the 
Constitution  as  framed  by  the  convention.  It  could 
not  have  been  overlooked  or  omitted  by  accident; 
it  is  obvious  that  it  was  done  deliberately. 

AMENDMENTS  IL-VIII. 

The  next  seven  amendments  protect  the  people 
against  military  rule  in  defiance  of  civil  authority; 
against  the  search  or  seizure  of  their  persons,  homes, 
papers,  etc.,  except  by  authority  of  a  warrant  duly 
issued  under  proper  legal  restrictions;  against  being 
put  in  jeopardy  of  trial  and  conviction;  without  the 
alleged  charge  being  investigated  and  approved  by 
a  grand  jury,  or  the  taking  of  life,  liberty,  or  property 
without  due  process  of  law;  against  trial  and  con 
viction  except  by  an  impartial  jury  where  the  alleged 
crime  was  committed,  with  information  as  to  the 

166 


cause  and  nature  of  the  offence,  faced  by  accusing 
witnesses,  and  the  right  of  counsel  for  defense; 
against  the  courts  overturning  a  jury's  verdict; 
against  excessive  bail,  or  "cruel  and  unusual  punish 
ments." 

Jefferson  had  returned,  and  his  tongue  and  pen 
were  in  action ;  the  priceless  Bill  of  Rights  was  thus 
saved  and  made  a  part  of  our  organic  law.  But 
Jefferson,  with  foresighted  wisdom,  based  on  a  deep 
knowledge  of  men  and  things,  knew  that  it  was  ne 
cessary  to  protect  liberty  and  all  human  rights  by 
clear  and  positive  safeguards;  therefore,  the  ninth 
and  tenth  amendments  were  added  for  this  purpose. 
The  Ninth  Amendment  was  as  follows: 

AMENDMENT  IX. 

"The  enumeration  in  the  Constitution  of 
certain  rights  shall  not  be  construed  to  deny 
or  disparage  others  retained  by  the 
people." 

A  wonderfully  wise  provision;  a  recognition  and 
declaration  of  the  great  fundamental  fact  that  all 
rights  and  power  are  inherent  in  the  people  them 
selves,  and  are  not  derived  as  concessions  from 
usurpers  masquerading  under  the  "Divine  rights  of 
Kings."  But  the  enemies  of  human  freedom  in  high 
places  have  often  betrayed  this  trust  and  ignored  and 
trampled  under  foot  this  great  basic  principle  of  the 
divine  right  of  the  people,  as  I  will  show  below. 

Jefferson  also  foresaw  that  the  time  would  come 
when  an  ambitious  Federal  executive,  a  usurping 
Federal  court,  or  a  reckless  Congress  would  take  the 
position  that  the  people  and  the  States  had  no  power 
or  rights  which  were  not  subordinate  to  the  Federal 
power  and  authority.  He  knew  that  when  that  time 
came  our  great  representative  Democracy,  created 
by  the  amended  Constitution,  would  be  dead,  and 
that  on  its  grave  there  would  rule,  with  a  tyrant's 

167 


hand,  the  worst  autocracy  of  plutocracy  that  the 
world  has  ever  seen.  To  prevent  such  usurpation, 
the  Tenth  Amendment  was  submitted  and  adopted 
along  with  the  other  amendments.  It  is  worded  as 
follows: 

AMENDMENT  X. 

"The  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United 
States  by  the  Constitution,  nor  prohibited 
by  it  to  the  States,  are  reserved  to  the  States 
respectively  or  to  the  people." 

This  amendment,  in  such  clear  and  concise  lan 
guage,  was  the  greatest  possible  victory  for  pre 
venting  encroachments  on  the  reserved  rights  and 
liberties  of  the  people  and  the  independence  of  the 
States  necessary  for  State  sovereignty.  It  made  our 
Federal  Government  one  of  defined,  expressed  pow 
ers,  limited  definitely  to  the  powers  enumerated 
and  granted.  One  of  the  great  dangers  which 
Jefferson  feared,  and  which  he  was  sure  had 
been  forever  killed  by  this  amendment,  as  shown 
by  his  later  writings,  was  the  usurpation  by  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  power  to  supervise  the  Execu 
tive  Department  or  to  declare  a  law  enacted  by  Con 
gress  unconstitutional,  or  to  construe  the  Constitu 
tion  so  as  to  take  from  or  add  to  the  powers  granted 
by  the  States  and  the  people.  He  knew  no  such 
power  had  been  granted  to  the  Judiciary  Depart 
ment  and,  on  the  other  hand,  he  knew  (though  Madi 
son's  notes  had  not  then  been  published)  that  every 
effort  made  by  the  enemies  of  Democracy  in  the 
Constitutional  Convention  to  get  such  a  dangerous 
provision  in  the  Constitution  had  been  defeated;  yet 
he  determined  to  affirmatively  deny  that  power  and 
every  other  power  not  expressly  delegated  to  each 
of  the  three  departments  respectively  of  the  Fed 
eral  Government,  and  this  was  done  by  the  plain  and 
precise  words  of  the  Tenth  Amendment. 

In  this  connection,  I  call  attention  to  Madison's 

168 


Notes,  p.  533,  which  show  that  the  proposition  to 
confer  upon  the  Supreme  Court  the  power  to  declare 
an  Act  of  Congress  void  was  squarely  at  issue;  and 
that  Maryland,  Delaware  and  Virginia  voted  aye; 
while  Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire,  Pennsylvania, 
Connecticut,  New  Jersey,  North  Carolina,  South 
Carolina  and  Georgia  voted  nay.  The  proposition 
was  brought  up  in  the  convention  on  several  other 
occasions,  but  was  each  time  decisively  defeated. 

While  the  members  of  the  Constitutional  Conven 
tion  were  ultra-conservative,  serving  property  rights 
with  a  contempt  for  human  rights,  and  always  try 
ing  to  hobble  and  gag  the  rule  of  the  people,  yet 
they  were  familiar  with  the  fact  that  when  an  Eng 
lish  court,  about  three  hundred  years  before,  held 
an  Act  of  Parliament  void,  the  Chief  Justice,  Tras- 
sillian,  had  been  hanged  and  his  associates  on  the 
bench  had  been  banished  from  the  country.  They 
also  knew  that  since  that  time  no  English  court  had 
dared  to  usurp  such  unconstitutional  authority.  It 
was  this  fact,  no  doubt,  which  deterred  such  a  Con 
stitutional  Convention  from  conferring  upon  the  Su 
preme  Court  the  power  to  declare  an  Act  of  Congress 
unconstitutional. 

With  the  Constitution  thus  amended,  Jefferson  de 
clared  that  the  Bill  of  Rights,  buttressed  by  the  Tenth 
Amendment,  were  the  "two  sheet  anchors  of  our 
Union."  He  felt  sure  that  a  government  of,  for,  and 
by  the  people  was  assured  for  all  time.  He  saw  a 
great  representative  Democracy  launched,  with 
every  delegated  power  necessary  for  national  pur 
poses,  and  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  people  en 
throned  and  safe  beyond  successful  attack  or  en 
croachment.  But  he  soon  had  a  rude  awakening. 

THE  FIRST  ACT  OF  JUDICIAL  USURPATION 

Chief  Justice  Marshall,  who  was  an  Englishman,  in 
the  case  of  Marbury  vs.  Madison,  usurped  the  power  to 

169 


interpret  the  Constitution  and  to  instruct  another  co 
equal  and  co-sovereign  department  of  the  Government 
as  to  its  powers  and  duties. 

Jefferson  denounced  that  decision  as  a  bald  usurpa 
tion  and  a  glaring  unconstitutional  encroachment  on 
the  powers  and  duties  of  another  independent  de 
partment  of  the  Government.  He  lamented  the  failure 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  to  bring  the  Court  to 
trial  under  impeachment  proceedings.  In  a  letter  to 
Judge  Spencer  Roane,  under  date  of  September  6,  1819, 
he  said : 

"In  denying  the  right  they  usurp  of  exclu 
sively  explaining  the  Constitution,  I  go  fur 
ther  than  you  do,  if  I  understand  rightly  your 
quotation,  from  the  Federalist,  of  an  opinion 
that  the  'judiciary  is  the  last  resort  in  relation 
to  the  other  departments  of  the  Government, 
but  not  in  relation  to  the  rights  of  the  parties 
to  the  compact  under  which  the  judiciary  is 
derived/  If  this  opinion  be  sound,  then  in 
deed  is  our  Constitution  a  complete  felo  de  se. 
For  intending  to  establish  three  departments, 
co-ordinate  and  independent,  that  they  might 
check  and  balance  one  another,  it  has  given, 
according  to  this  opinion,  to  one  of  them 
alone,  the  right  to  prescribe  rules  for  the  gov 
ernment  of  the  others,  and  to  that  one  too 
which  is  unelected  by,  and  independent  of  the 
nation.  For  experience  has  already  shown 
that  the  impeachment  it  has  provided  is  not 
even  a  scarecrow.  .  .  .  The  Constitution,  on 
this  hypothesis,  i,s  a  mere  thing  of  wax  in  the 
hands  of  the  judiciary,  which  they  may  twist 
and  shape  into  any  form  they  please.  It  should 
be  remembered,  as  an  axiom  of  eternal  truth 
in  politics,  that  whatever  power  in  any  gov 
ernment  is  independent  is  absolute  also;  in 
theory  only,  at  first,  while  the  spirit  of  the 
people  is  up,  but  in  practice,  as  fast  as  that 

170 


relaxes.  Independence  can  be  trusted  nowhere 
but  with  the  people  in  mass.  They  are  inher 
ently  independent  of  all  but  moral  law.  My 

construction  of  the  Constitution  is  very  differ 
ent  from  that  you  quote.  It  is  that  each  de 
partment  is  truly  independent  of  the  others, 
and  has  an  equal  right  to  decide  for  itself 
what  is  the  meaning  of  the  Constitution  in  the 
cases  submitted  to  its  action;  and  especially 
where  it  is  to  act  ultimately  and  without 
appeal." 

In  a  letter  to  Judge  William  Johnson,  under  date 
of  June  12,  1823,  commenting  on  the  same  decision, 
he  said: 

"But  the  Chief  Justice  says,  'there  must 
be  an  ultimate  arbiter  somewhere/  True, 
there  must;  but  does  that  prove  it  is  either 
party?  The  ultimate  arbiter  is  the  people 
of  the  Union,  assembled  by  their  deputies 
in  convention,  at  the  call  of  Congress,  or  of 
two-thirds  of  the  States.  Let  them  decide 
to  which  they  mean  to  give  an  authority 
claimed  by  two  of  their  organs.  And  it 
has  been  the  peculiar  wisdom  and  felicity 
of  our  Constitution  to  have  provided  this 
peacable  appeal,  where  that  of  other  na 
tions  is  at  once  to  force." 

In  a  letter  to  William  Charles  Jarvis,  under  date 
of  September  28,  1820,  reviewing  a  book  which  at 
tempted  to  defend  this  court  usurpation  of  power, 
he  said; 

"You  seem,  in  pages  84  to  148,  to  con 
sider  the  judges  as  the  ultimate  arbiter  of 
all  constitutional  questions — a  very  danger 
ous  doctrine  indeed  and  one  which  would 
place  us  under  the  despotism  of  an  olig 
archy.  Our  judges  are  as  honest  as  other  men 
and  not  more  so.  They  have,  with  others, 

171 


the  same  passion  for  party,  for  power  and 
the  privilege  of  their  corps.  Their  maxim 
is  *bon  judicis  est  amplaire  jurisdictionem,' 

and  their  power  is  the  more  dangerous  as 
they  are  not  responsible,  as  the  other  func 
tionaries  are,  to  the  effective  control.  The 
Constitution  has  created  no  such  single  trib 
unal,  knowing  that  to  whatever  hands  con 
fided,  with  the  corruptions  of  time  and 
party,  its  members  would  become  despots. 
It  has  more  wisely  made  all  the  depart 
ments  co-equal  and  co-sovereign  with  them 
selves." 

No  one  ever  has  or  ever  can  question  the  truth 
of  this  statement  that  "the  Constitution  has  erected 
no  such  single  tribunal"  to  supervise  and  to  veto 
the  acts  of  the  other  two  "co-equal  and  co-sovereign 
departments  of  our  government;  therefore  Congress 
inertly  surrendered  its  co-equal  and  co-sovereign 
powers  when  it  failed  to  impeach  the  Judicial  De 
partment  of  the  Government  for  this  contemptuous 
usurpation  of  powers,  over  which  the  people  re 
served  to  themselves  elective  control. 

Further  on  in  the  same  letter,  Jefferson  says: 

"The  Constitution,  in  keeping  three  de 
partments  distinct  and  independent,  re 
strains  the  authority  of  the  judges  to  judi 
ciary  organs,  as  it  does  the  executive  and 
legislative  to  executive  and  legislative  or 
gans.  The  judges  certainly  have  more  fre 
quent  occasion  to  act  on  constitutional  ques 
tions,  because  the  laws  of  meum  and  tuum 
and  of  criminal  action,  forming  the  great 
mass  of  the  system  of  law,  constitute  their 
particular  department.  When  the  legisla 
tive  or  executive  functionaries  act  unconsti 
tutionally,  they  are  responsible  to  the  peo 
ple  in  their  elective  capacity.  The  exemp- 

172 


tion  of  the  judges  from  that  is  quite  dan 
gerous  enough.  I  know  no  safe  depository 
of  the  ultimate  powers  of  the  society  but 
the  people  themselves;  and  if  we  think 
them  not  enlightened  enough  to  exercise 
THEIR  CONTROL  WITH  A  WHOLESOME 
DISCRETION,  THE  REMEDY  IS  NOT  TO 
TAKE  IT  FROM  THEM,  BUT  TO  INFORM 
THEIR  DISCRETION  BY  EDUCATION. 
THIS  IS  THE  TRUE  CORRECTIVE  OF 
ABUSES  OF  CONSTITUTIONAL  POWER. 
PARDON  ME,  SIR,  FOR  THIS  DIFFER 
ENCE  OF  OPINION.  MY  PERSONAL  IN 
TEREST  IN  SUCH  QUESTIONS  IS  EN 
TIRELY  EXTINCT,  BUT  NOT  MY  WISH 
ES  FOR  THE  LONGEST  POSSIBLE  CON 
TINUANCE  OF  OUR  GOVERNMENT  ON 
ITS  PURE  PRINCIPLES :  IF  THE  THREE 
POWERS  MAINTAIN  THEIR  MUTUAL 
INDEPENDENCE  ON  EACH  OTHER  IT 
MAY  LAST  LONG,  BUT  NOT  SO  IF 
EITHER  CAN  ASSUME  THE  AUTHOR 
ITIES  OF  THE  OTHER." 

I  have  already  shown  that  the  Constitution  con 
fers  no  power  on  the  Judiciary  Department  of  the 
Government  to  question  the  legality  of  an  Act  of 
Congress,  and  that  every  time  the  conferring  of  such 
dangerous  powers  on  that  department  was  proposed 
in  the  convention  it  was  voted  down.  I  have  also 
shown  that  the  states  would  not,  even  then,  accept 
the  Constitution  until  the  ten  amendments  were  form 
ulated  and  satisfactory  assurances  were  made  that 
they  would  be  at  once  submitted  for  adoption;  and 
also  that  these  amendments,  after  including  the  great 
Bill  of  Rights,  concluded  with  the  most  important 
Tenth  Amendment,  which  affirmatively  and  posi 
tively  reserved  to  the  people  and  to  the  states  all 
powers  and  rights  not  expressly  granted  to  the  Fed- 

173 


eral  Government,  and  which  expressly  inhibits  the 
taking  away  of  or  the  adding  of  any  powers  by  con 
struction  or  by  implication.  On  these  clear  and  con 
cise  reasons,  Jefferson  correctly  asserts  that  the 
power  to  determine  the  constitutionality  of  a  law  is 
reserved  to  the  people.  They,  and  they  alone,  have 
the  power  to  pass  on  the  legality  of  any  law  of  Con 
gress,  and  they  can  use  that  power  at  any  and  every 
election. 

This  is  the  plain  truth  of  the  whole  matter. 

In  another  letter,  under  date  of  December  25, 
1820,  to  Thomas  Richie,  commenting  on  a  book  by 
Colonel  Taylor,  which  vigorously  criticized  the  ex 
travagance  of  the  Government  and  the  greatly  in 
creased  appropriations  and  taxes  called  for  by  the 
Treasury  Department,  Jefferson  said: 

"If  there  be  anything  amiss,  therefore,  in 
the  present  state  of  our  affairs,  as  the  form 
idable  deficit  lately  unfolded  to  us  indicates, 
I  ascribe  it  to  the  inattention  of  Congress  to 
their  duties,  to  their  unwise  dissipation  and 
waste  of  the  public  contributions.  They 
seemed,  some  little  while  ago,  to  be  at  a 
loss  for  objects  whereon  to  throw  away  the 
supposed  fathomless  funds  of  the  Treasury. 
.  .  .  The  deficit  produced,  and  a  heavy  tax 
to  supply  it,  will,  I  trust,  bring  both  to  their 
sober  senses. 

"But  it  is  not  from  this  branch  of  gov 
ernment  we  have  most  to  fear.  Taxes  and 
short  elections  will  keep  them  right.  The 
Judiciary  of  the  United  States  is  the  subtle 
corps ^  of  sappers  and  miners  constantly 
working  underground  to  undermine  the 
foundations  of  our  confederated  fabric. 
They  are  construing  our  Constitution  from 
a  coordination  of  a  general  and  .special 
government  to  a  general  and  supreme  one 

174 


alone.  This  will  lay  all  things  at  their  feet, 
and  they  are  too  well  versed  in  English  law 
to  forget  the  maxim,  boni  judicis  est  am- 
plaire  jurisdictionem.  We  shall  see  if  they 
are  bold  enough  to  take  the  daring  stride 
their  five  lawyers  have  lately  taken.  If 
they  do,  then,  with  the  editor  of  our  book, 
in  his  address  to  the  public,  I  will  say  that 
'against  this  every  man  should  raise  his 
voice/  and  more,  should  uplift  his  arm.  . .  . 
That  pen  should  go  on,  lay  bare  these 
wounds  of  our  Constitution,  expose  the  de 
cisions  seriatim,  and  arouse,  as  it  is  able,  the 
attention  of  the  nation  to  these  bold  specu 
lators,  on  its  patience.  Having  found,  from 
experience,  that  impeachment  is  an  imprac 
ticable  thing,  a  mere  scarecrow,  they  con 
sider  themselves  secure  for  life ;  they  skulk 
from  responsibility  to  public  opinion,  the 
only  remaining  hold  on  them,  under  a  prac 
tice  first  introduced  into  England  by  Lord 
Mansfield.  An  opinion  is  huddled  up  in 
conclave,  perhaps  by  a  majority  of  one,  de 
livered  as  if  unanimous,  and  with  the  silent 
acquiescence  of  lax  or  timid  associates,  by  a 
crafty  Chief  Judge  who  sophisticates  the 
law  to  his  mind  by  the  turn  of  his  own  rea 
soning.  A  judiciary  law  was  once  reported 
by  the  Attorney  General  to  Congress,  re 
quiring  each  judge  to  deliver  his  opinion 
seriatim  and  openly,  and  then  to  give  it  in 
writing  to  the  clerk  to  be  entered  in  the 
record.  A  judiciary  independent  of  a  king 
or  executive  alone  is  a  good  thing;  but  in 
dependence  of  the  will  of  the  nation  is  a 
solecism,  at  least  in  a  republican  govern 
ment." 
Such  criticism  of  this  startling  usurpation  by  the 

175 


Judiciary  Department  and  talk  of  the  impeachment 
of  the  judges  were  effective  to  prevent  the  court 
from  again  usurping  the  power  to  declare  an  Act 
of  Congress  void  for  over  fifty  years. 

THE  SECOND  ACT  OF  USURPATION 

It  was  not  long,  however,  before  this  same  court 
overstepped  its  defined  powers  and,  in  defiance  of 
every  principle  of  law,  equity  and  morals,  rendered 
the  notorious  Dartmouth  College  decision,  in  which 
it  was  held  that  property  interests,  past,  present  and 
future,  had  vested  rights,  under  a  special  privilege 
granted  in  a  private  charter,  which  it  was  impos 
sible  for  the  people,  through  legislation,  to  change, 
no  matter  how  injurious  to  the  public  interests  the 
terms  of  the  charter  might  be.  It  has  been  claimed, 
in  excuse  for  the  Court,  that  it  was  hypnotized  by 
the  overpowering  but  false  reasoning  of  Daniel  Web 
ster;  but,  let  that  be  as  it  may,  it  is  gratifying  that 
such  an  unsound  doctrine,  based  on  such  a  decision, 
has  been  repudiated  by  nearly  every  state  in  the 
Union,  and  by  nearly  every  civilized  country  in  the 
world. 

A  BALD  DEFIANCE  OF  CONGRESS  BY  THE 
JUDICIARY 

In  1857  Judge  Taney,  for  a  majority  of  the  court, 
held  an  Act  of  Congress  in  the  Missouri  Compromise 
case  unconstitutional.  There  was,  however,  no  in 
dignation  or  threat  of  impeachment  of  the  court  for 
this  bold  usurpation,  so  ever  since  the  Supreme 
Court  has  made  a  plaything  of  the  acts  of  Congress 
as  often  as  it  has  pleased  them  so  to  do.  This  is 
what  Jefferson  said  they  would  soon  become  bold 
enough  to  do  if  they  were  not  called  to  account  for 
usurpation  of  power.  It  was  against  the  first  usur 
pation  by  the  court  that  Jefferson  said:  "I  will  say 
that  "against  this  every  man  should  raise  his  voice, 
and  more,  should  uplift  his  arm." 

176 


THE  SUPREME  COURT  DESTROYS  THE  TENTH 
AMENDMENT 

The  pitiable  surrender  by  Congress  to  its  "co-equal 
and  co-sovereign  powers"  has  emboldened  the  Su 
preme  Court  not  only  to  continue  to  declare  Acts  of 
Congress  unconstitutional,  but  also  to  go  further  and 
wipe  out  completely  the  Tenth  Amendment  to  the 
Constitution.  This  has  been  done  not  only  to  give 
to  the  Federal  Government  powers  never  granted  by 
the  people  or  by  the  states,  but  also  to  take  from  the 
Federal  Government  powers  clearly  granted,  v/hen 
necessary  to  do  so  in  order  to  confer  special  priv 
ileges  on  big  property  interests.  A  striking  example 
is  the  famous,  or  rather  infamous,  income  tax  deci 
sions.  In  the  case  of  Pollock  vs.  Farmers  Loan  & 
Trust  Company,  the  Supreme  Court,  after  one  of  its 
judges,  Shiras,  had  changed  his  opinion  overnight, 
decided,  by  a  majority  of  one,  that  the  constitu 
tional  power  to  levy  a  fair  and  just  tax  on  incomes, 
which  Congress  has  exercised  for  a  hundred  years, 
was  unconstitutional.  This  startling  decision  did 
not  arouse  Congress  to  its  duty  to  impeach  the  court; 
but  it  so  aroused  the  people  everywhere  that  a  move 
ment  was  at  once  started  all  over  the  country  which 
resulted  in  the  adoption  of  the  Sixteenth  Amendment 
to  the  Constitution. 

Judge  Shiras  was  a  Pennsylvania  lawyer  and  had 
for  years,  so  I  am  informed,  been  the  attorney  of 
many  of  the  chief  beneficiaries  of  his  change  of 
position  as  a  judge  on  this  question;  but  I  know  a 
lawyer  is  the  only  person  who  can  legally  take  a 
bribe — he  calls  it  a  fee. 

This  amendment  again  conferred  upon  Congress 
the  power  which  the  Court,  by  an  unconstitutional 
and  revolutionary  decision,  had  attempted  to  take 
away.  Under  the  broad  terms  of  this  Sixteenth 
Amendment,  which,  in  specific  language,  makes  all 

177 


incomes  from  whatever  source  derived,  liable  for 
an  income  tax,  Congress  passed  another  income  tax 
law.  The  court,  not  daring  to  again  declare  an  in 
come  tax  unconstitutional,  then  proceeded  to  render 
a  legislative  decision  in  which  it  holds  that  an  in 
come  received  in  the  form  of  a  "stock  dividend"  is 
not  liable  for  a  tax  on  such  income.  This  opened 
the  way  to  relieve  all  the  largest  incomes  in  this 
country  from  any  tax  whatever.  All  the  big  cor 
porations  at  once  began  declaring  stock  dividends 
instead  of  cash  dividends,  and  thus  they  are  robbing 
the  Treasury  of  the  United  States  annually  of  hun 
dreds  of  millions  of  dollars,  which  must  be  made  up 
and  paid  by  the  people  of  less  means  and  less  ca 
pacity  to  pay. 

This  monstrous  decision  was  rammed  through  the 
court  by  a  majority  of  one,  four  of  the  justices  dis 
senting  ;  Mr.  Justice  Brandeis,  in  his  dissenting  opinion, 
said : 

"If  stock  dividends  representing  profits 
are  held  exempt  from  taxation  under  the 
Sixteenth  Amendment,  the  ow^ners  of  the 
most  successful  business  in  America  will, 
as  the  facts  in  this  case  illustrate,  be  able  to 
escape  taxation  on  a  large  part  of  what  is 
actually  their  income." 

How  quickly  this  prophecy  was  fulfilled  is  indi 
cated  by  the  volume  of  stock  dividends  that  have 
been  declared  since  the  court  delivered  this  opinion. 
Mr.  Justice  Brandeis,  in  the  same  dissenting  opinion, 
adds:  "That  such  a  result  was  intended  by  the 
people  of  the  United  States  when  adopting  the  Six 
teenth  Amendment  is  inconceivable." 

The  same  conviction  is  expressed  with  pungency 
by  Mr.  Justice  Holmes  in  his  dissenting  opinion  in 
the  same  case,  in  which  he  says : 

"I  think  that  the  word  incomes  in  the  Six 
teenth  Amendment  should  be  read  in  'a 

178 


sense  most  obvious  to  the  common  under 
standing  at  the  time  of  its  adoption,'  .... 
for  it  was  for  public  adoption  that  it  was 
proposed.  .  .  .  The  known  purpose  of  this 
amendment  was  to  get  rid  of  nice  questions 
as  to  what  might  be  direct  taxes,  and  I  can 
not  doubt  that  most  people,  not  lawyers, 
would  suppose  when  they  voted  for  it  that 
they  put  a  question  like  the  present  one  to 
rest." 

This  is  a  strong  and  timely  indictment  of  such 
judicial  usurpation. 

A  MOST  BRAZEN  DECISION 

The  Supreme  Court,  by  this  decision,  had  protected 
their  rich  friends  from  paying  an  income  tax,  but 
had  not  protected  themselves,  since  their  salaries 
from  the  Government  were  paid  in  cash,  and  not  in 
stock  dividends;  so  another  decision  was  rendered, 
declaring  the  income  tax  law  unconstitutional  as  far 
as  it  requires  the  judges  and  the  President  to  pay 
an  income  tax.  This  raw  personal  decision  was  ren 
dered  by  Judge  Van  Devender,  a  sage-brush  lawyer 
from  the  cowboy  country  of  Wyoming,  who  was  ap 
pointed  by  Roosevelt,  and  whose  only  qualification 
seems  to  be  that  he  had  been  an  attorney  for  the 
Union  Pacific  Railroad.  I  have  seen  no  reputable 
citizen  who  has  attempted  to  defend  this  outrageous 
decision,  rendered  in  the  interests  of  their  own  per 
sonal  pockets. 

THE  JUDICIARY  DRUNK  WITH  POWER 

In  short,  the  court,  having  become  drunk  with  un 
restrained  power,  has  boldly  entered  the  field  of  leg 
islation,  and  now  does  not  hesitate  to  alter,  amend, 
or  repeal  any  act  of  Congress.  The  court  could  not 
find  any  grounds  on  which  to  declare  the  Anti-Trust 
law  unconstitutional,  so  it  proceeded  to  amend  the 

179 


law.  The  act  makes  unlawful  "a  conspiracy  in  re 
straint  of  trade";  but  the  court  amended  it  by  in 
serting  the  word  "unreasonable,"  so  restraint  of 
trade  is  no  longer  unlawful  unless  it  is  "unreason 
able"  restraint.  Highway  robbery  is  no  longer  a 
crime  unless  it  is  "unreasonable"  robbery. 

The  cases  of  such  judicial  juggling  with  legisla 
tion  are  too  numerous  to  mention;  but  I  will  cite 
one  other  case  which  caps  the  climax  of  flagrant 
usurpation — the  notorious  Steel  Trust  case.  The 
Steel  Trust  was  indicted  and  tried  for  violation  of 
the  Anti-Trust  law.  The  evidence  of  guilt  was  over 
whelming  and  conclusive.  The  court  admitted  it 
was  clear  that  the  Steel  Trust  had  been  violating 
the  law  in  a  wholesale  manner;  yet  it  held  that  it 
was  not  committing  any  new  acts  of  lawlessness  just 
at  that  time,  and,  therefore,  that  no  good  purpose 
would  seem  to  be  served  in  now  punishing  the  trust 
for  past  gross  violations  of  law. 

1  quote  the  following  from  the  decision  of  the 
court  in  that  case : 

"A  holding  corporation  which  by  its  for 
mation  united  under  one  control  competing 
companies  in  the  steel  industry,  but  which 
did  not  achieve  monopoly,  and  only  at 
tempted  to  fix  prices  through  occasional 
appeals  to  and  confederation  with  compet 
itors,  whatever  there  was  of  wrongful  in 
tent  not  having  been  executed,  and  what 
ever  there  was  of  evil  effect  having  been 
discontinued  before  suit  was  brought, 
should  not  be  dissolved  nor  be  separated 
from  some  of  its  subsidiaries  at  the  suit  of 
the  Government,  asserting  violations  of  the 
Sherman  Anti-Trust  Act- — especially  where 
the  court  cannot  see  that  the  public  interest 
will  be  served  by  'yielding  to  the  Govern 
ment's  demand,  and  does  see  in  so  yielding 

180 


a  risk  of  injury  to  the  public  interest,  in 
cluding  a  material  disturbance  of,  and,  per 
haps,  serious  detriment  to,  the  foreign 
trade. 

"In  conclusion,  we  are  unable  to  see  that 
the  public  interest  will  be  served  by  yield 
ing  to  the  contention  of  the  Government 
respecting  the  dissolution  of  the  company 
or  the  separation  from  it  of  some  of  its  sub 
sidiaries;  and  we  do  see  in  a  contrary  con 
clusion  a  risk  of  injury  to  the  public  in 
terest,  including  a  material  disturbance  of, 
and,  it  may  be  serious  detriment  to,  the 
foreign  trade.  And,  in  submission  to  the 
policy  of  the  law,  and  its  fortifying  pro 
hibitions,  the  public  interest  is  of  para 
mount  regard." 

But  you  must  remember  the  judges  are  lawyers,  and 
a  lawyer  is  the  only  person  who  can  legally  take  a  bribe 
— he  calls  it  a  fee. 

So  the  public  has  been  robbed  in  a  wholesale  manner, 
but,  inasmuch  as  the  robbers  are  not  just  now  doing 
any  stealing,  and  they  promise  to  use  some  of  their 
stolen  money  for  charity,  it  is  not  deemed  to  be  in  the 
public  interests  to  punish  them ;  they  are  allowed  to  go 
scot-free  with  their  ill-gotten  gains,  and  not  even  put 
under  bond  not  to  violate  the  law  again. 

Of  course,  a  court  that  will  render  such  a  line  of  deci 
sions  could  be  depended  on  to  declare  unconstitutional 
the  law  passed  by  Congress  making  "profiteering"  ille 
gal  during  the  war,  which  thing  the  court  has  just 
done;  and  now  all  the  profiteers,  big  and  little,  who 
have  been  indicted  for  most  treasonable  profiteering  on 
the  Government,  contributing  to  the  suffering  and 
death  of  thousands  of  soldiers,  whose  lives  otherwise 
would  have  been  saved,  are  discharged  with  honor  and 
are  permitted  to  go  scot-free  with  their  blood-money 
fortunes. 

181 


Jefferson  is  dead;  and  Congress  is  composed  of 
lawyers. 

HOW  ALL  THE  TEN  AMENDMENTS  ARE  BEING 
DESTROYED 

These  cases  illustrate  how  the  Federal  courts  have 
usurped  powers  in  order  to  shield  and  confer  special 
privileges  on  big  property  interests,  in  flagrant  viola 
tion  of  the  Tenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution.  But 
the  courts  have  gone  further,  and  have  attempted  to 
destroy  all  the  ten  amendments,  which  were  put  into 
the  Constitution  to  safeguard  and  protect  human 
rights. 

In  the  Abrams  case,  recently  decided  by  the  Supreme 
Court,  it  was  held  that  Mollie  Steiner  and  Abrams  and 
two  others  were  guilty  of  violating  the  Espionage  Act 
because  they  circulated  in  New  York  a  pamphlet  urging 
the  raising  of  the  blockade  against  Russia.  The  lower 
court  had  sentenced  Mollie  Steiner  to  prison  for  fifteen 
years — a  mere  slip  of  a  girl,  a  little  over  twenty  years 
of  age — and  the  three  men,  who  had  also  circulated  this 
petition  protesting  against  the  blockade,  for  twenty 
years  each  to  the  Federal  penitentiary.  This  monstrous 
decision,  which  is  clearly  in  violation  of  tShe  First  Amend 
ment — guaranteeing  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the 
press — and  which  is  also  squarely  in  defiance  of  thg 
Eighth  Amendment,  which  provided  that  cruel  and  un 
usual  punishments  .shall  not  be  inflicted,  was  affirmed 
by  a  majority  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States.  I  quote  from  the  dissenting  opinion  of  the 
court  rendered  by  Justice  Holmes  and  concurred  in  by 
Justice  Brandeis : 

"To  hold  such  publications  can  be  sup 
pressed  as  false  reports,  subjects  to  new  perils 
the  constitutional  liberty  of  the  press,  already 
seriously  curtailed  in  practice  under  powers 
assumed  to  have  been  conferred  upon  the 
postal  authorities.  Nor  will  this  grave  danger 

182 


end  with  the  passing  of  the  war.  The  consti 
tutional  right  of  free  speech  has  been  declared 
to  be  the  same  in  peace  and  in  war.  In  peace, 
too,  men  may  differ  as  to  what  loyalty  to  pur 
country  demands,  and  an  intolerant  majority, 
swayed  by  passion  or  by  fear,  may  be  prone  in 
the  future,  as  it  has  often  been  in  the  past,  to 
stamp  as  disloyal  opinions  with  which  it  dis 
agrees.  Convictions  such  as  these,  besides 
abridging  freedom  of  speech,  threaten  free 
dom  of  thought  and  of  belief.  ...  In  this 
case,  sentences  of  twenty  years*  imprison 
ment  have  been  imposed  for  the  publishing  of 
two  leaflets  that  I  believe  the  defendants  had 
as  much  right  to  publish  as  the  Government 
has  to  publish  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  now  vainly  invoked  by  them." 

Such  an  infamous  and  inhuman  decision  requires  no 
further  comment  from  me. 

Similar  cases  are  so  numerous  in  the  recent  decisions 
of  the  Supreme  Court  that  it  is  astonishing  that  Con 
gress  has  not  acted  to  call  the  offending  members  of 
the  court  to  accountability  for  such  flagrant  usurpa 
tions,  in  violation  of  the  basic  rights  of  a  free  people 
guaranteed  by  the  first  and  other  amendments  to  the 
Constitution.  The  President  of  the  United  States 
should  have  removed  these  offending  judges  for  want 
of  "good  behavior,"  which  is  the  constitutional  qualifi 
cation  for  a  Federal  judge.  A  judge  should  not  be  per 
mitted  to  remain  on  the  bench  until  he  commits  offenses 
so  great  as  to  make  him  guilty  of  the  grave  crimes 
named  by  the  Constitution  for  impeachment.  But  the 
offenses  here  cited  amount  to  "high  crimes  and  misde 
meanors,"  and  also  to  "treason"  against  free  govern 
ment,  and  therefore  call  loudly  to  Congress  to  apply 
the  impeachment  remedy  of  the  Constitution,  since  the 
President  has  failed  to  remove  them  for  want  of  "good 
behavior." 

183 


I  will  mention  one  more  case:  In  the  Gilbert  case 
from  Minnesota,  the  Supreme  Court  held  outright  that 
the  expression  of  opinion  is  a  crime.  In  that  case,  the 
speaker  had  simply  stated  that  the  people  had  no  voice, 
really,  in  the  selection  of  any  of  their  officers,  but  that 
they  were  selected  for  them ;  that  voting  was  no  partic 
ular  remedy  for  any  of  the  evils  of  which  we  complain, 
because  the  candidates  and  the  platform  were  prepared 
in  advance  by  big  business  interests;  and  that  people 
could  vote  or  not  vote,  just  as  they  chose,  it  making  no 
difference  in  the  result. 

The  indictment  in  that  case  charged  that  Gilbert  in 
time  of  war  used  the  following  language  in  a  public 
speech  in  the  State  of  Minnesota : 

"We  are  going  over  to  Europe  to  make  the 
world  safe  for  democracy,  but  I  tell  you  we 
had  better  make  America  safe  for  democracy 
first.  You  .say,  'What  is  the  matter  with  our 
democracy?'  I  tell  you  what  is  the  matter  with 
it:  Have  you  had  anything  to  say  as  to  who 
should  be  President  ?  Have  you  had  anything 
to  say  as  to  who  should  be  Governor  of  this 
state?  Have  you  had  anything  to  say  as  to 
whether  we  would  go  into  this  war?  You 
know  you  have  not.  If  this  is  such  a  good  de 
mocracy,  for  Heaven's  sake  why  should  we 
not  vote  on  conscription  of  men?  We  were 
stampeded  into  this  war  by  newspaper  rot  to 
pull  England's  chestnuts  out  of  the  fire  for 
her.  I  tell  you  if  they  conscripted  wealth  like 
they  have  conscripted  men,  this  war  would 
not  last  over  forty-eight  hours.  ..." 

It  was  for  expressing  these  opinions  that  he  was  sent 
to  jail  for  three  years  and  fined  five  hundred  dollars. 

What  has  become  of  the  Bill  of  Rights  guaranteeing 
"freedom  of  speech"? 

Let  us  read  again  the  First  Amendment  to  the  Con 
stitution  : 

184 


FIRST  AMENDMENT 

"Congress  shall  make  no  law  respecting  an 
establishment  of  religion,  or  prohibiting  the 
free  exercise  thereof;  or  abridging  the  free 
dom  of  speech,  or  of  the  press,  or  of  the  right 
of  the  people  peaceably  to  assemble,  and  to 
petition  the  Government  for  a  redress  of 
grievances." 

When  the  court  convicted  Gilbert  for  the  expression 
of  such  an  opinion,  it  repealed,  by  judicial  fiat,  this 
amendment  to  the  Constitution. 

Hear  Judge  McKenna  roar,  and  hear  the  other  little 
judges  join  in  the  chorus: 

".  .  .  The  war  .  .  .  was  not  declared  in  ag 
gression,  but  in  defense,  in  defense  of  our  na 
tional  honor,  in  vindication  of  the  most  sacred 
rights  of  our  nation  and  our  people."  (Words 
of  President  Wilson  in  his  War  Message  to 
Congress,  April  2,  1917.) 

"This  was  known  to  Gilbert,  for  he  was  in 
formed  in  affairs  and  the  operations  of  the 
Government,  and  every  word  that  he  uttered 
in  denunciation  of  the  war  was  false,  was 
deliberate  misrepresentation  of  the  motives 
which  impelled  it,  and  the  objects  for  which  it 
was  prosecuted.  He  could  have  had  no  purpose 
other  than  that  of  which  he  was  charged.  It 
would  be  a  tragedy  on  the  constitutional  privi 
lege  he  invokes  to  assign  him  its  protection." 

This  language  of  the  court  needs  no  comment,  be 
cause  it  shows  on  its  face  utter  want  of  judicial  rea 
soning  ;  it  is  not  expressive  of  any  legal  principle ;  it  is 
an  assertion  of  naked  power,  avowedly  guided  by  emo 
tion. 

Here  is  a  court — the  Supreme  Court — the  court  of 
last  resort,  depriving  an  American  citizen  of  his  liberty, 
and  founding  their  opinion  on  emotion  and  hysteria; 

185 


on  instinct  without  logic,  without  sense  or  reason,  over 
turning  the  Constitution  and  violating  their  oath  of 
office,  while  Congress  fails  to  act  because  it  is  composed 
of  lawyers. 

It  is  needless  to  cite  or  examine  other  decisions  of  a 
court  which  has  become  so  irresponsibly  drunk  with 
usurped  power  as  to  render  two  such  monstrous  deci 
sions.  They  are  flagrant  violations  of  the  basic  guar 
antees  of  the  Bill  of  Rights  and  the  ten  amendments, 
and  are  revolutionary  in  the  extreme.  It  is  such  trea 
sonable  judicial  tyranny  as  this  that  breeds  anarchy. 

Let  us  read  again  the  earnest  and  warning  words  of 
Jefferson : 

"The  judiciary  of  the  United  States  is  the 
subtle  corps  of  sappers  and  miners  constantly 
working  underground  to  undermine  the  foun 
dations  of  our  confederated  fabric.  ...  I  will 
say,  that  against  this  every  man  should  raise 
his  voice,  and,  more,  should  uplift  his  arm." 

But  Jefferson  is  dead,  and  Congress  is  composed  of 
lawyers  who  are  the  attorneys  of  big  business.  A 
lawyer  is  the  only  person,  whether  a  judge  or  Con 
gressman,  who  can  legally  take  a  bribe — he  calls  it  a  fee. 

Against  this  ugly  and  most  dangerous  thing,  I,  as  one 
American  citizen  of  this  generation,  have  been  and  will 
continue  to  raise  my  voice.  It  must  stop ;  if  neither  the 
President  nor  Congress  will  exercise  their  constitu 
tional  power  and  duty  to  remove  such  judges  for  such 
inhuman  usurpations,  the  people  will  uplift  their  arm. 

WHAT  IS  THE  MATTER  WITH  THE  U.  S.  COURTS? 

In  answer  to  that  question,  Jefferson  said  that  the 
judges  of  the  United  States  courts  "are  as  honest  as 
other  men,  but  not  more  so" ;  that  they  have  the  same 
passions  for  party  and  for  power;  that  their  power  is 
all  the  more  dangerous  because  they  are  appointed  and 
are  not  responsible,  as  the  officials  of  the  legislative  and 
executive  departments  are,  to  elective  control;  that, 

186 


when  on  the  bench  they  become  indoctrinated  with  the 
false  and  dangerous  English  doctrine,  that  "it  is  the 
part  of  a  good  judge  to  enlarge  his  jurisdiction,"  which 
is  squarely  prohibited  by  our  Constitution.  JEFFER 
SON  FURTHER  POINTED  OUT  THAT  SUCH 
JUDGES,  AS  SOON  AS  THEY  SHALL  FEEL  THAT 
THERE  IS  NO  DANGER  OF  IMPEACHMENT  BY 
CONGRESS,  "WILL  BECOME  BOLD  ENOUGH  TO 
USURP  POWER  AND  BECOME  DESPOTS  TO  DE 
STROY  OUR  LIBERTIES."  IT  WAS  FOR  THESE 
REASONS  THAT  JEFFERSON  WARNED  THE  PEO 
PLE  OF  OUR  COUNTRY  THAT  "THE  JUDICIARY 
OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  IS  A  SUBTLE  CORPS  OF 
SAPPERS  AND  MINERS  CONSTANTLY  WORKING 
TO  UNDERMINE  THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  OUR 
CONFEDERATED  FABRIC." 

These  were  Jefferson's  fears  after  he  saw  the  Su 
preme  Court,  composed  of  men  of  average  ability  and 
honesty,  usurp  power  for  the  first  time  to  wipe  out  the 
Tenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution.  What  would 
he  say  if  he  could  ,see  the  kind  of  men  who  now  fill  most 
of  the  Federal  Judiciary,  and  the  flagrant  lengths  of 
usurpation  and  despotism  to  which  they  have  gone  to 
serve  mammon  and  to  trample  upon  the  rights  and  lib 
erties  of  the  people  ? 

I  am  of  the  opinion  that  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  by  a  long  line  of  decisions,  has  become 
ridiculous,  absurd  and  contemptible.  They  cannot  go 
to  any  greater  length  and,  if  Congress  was  not  com 
posed  of  lawyers,  the  Supreme  Court  would  be  abol 
ished  at  once.  They  should  be  impeached  for  high 
crimes  and  misdemeanors,  and  banished  from  official 
life  forever.  If  the  present  court  is  impeached  it  will 
not  remedy  the  evil.  The  only  remedy  is  to  abolish  the 
courts  created  by  Congress  and  thus  reduce  the  Su 
preme  Court  to  impotency. 

One  of  the  additional  things  which  is  the  matter  with 
the  Federal  courts  is  an  evil  which  has  developed  under 
our  modern  reign  of  plutocracjr  in  the  selection  of  attor- 

187 


neys  of  corporations  and  special  privilege,  who  are 
obviously  disqualified  to  be  judges  because  they  are 
necessarily  prejudiced  in  favor  of  the  ever-increasing 
selfish  demands  of  big  business  and,  therefore,  preju 
diced  against  the  rights  and  welfare  of  the  general 
public.  In  fact,  as  a  rule,  corporation  lawyers  who 
have  spent  their  lives  conniving  with  cunning  skill  to 
enable  the  great  combinations  to  evade  the  law  of  the 
land,  alone  are  selected  to  be  judges  of  the  United 
States  courts. 

The  judges  of  the  United  States  courts  are  advanced 
in  years  before  they  are  appointed,  having  spent  their 
lives  in  the  employ  of  the  exploiters  of  the  people  of 
the  United  States.  They  all  believe  that  property 
rights  are  sacred  and  not  human  rights. 

A  concrete  illustration  of  this  state  of  affairs  arose 
in  New  York  in  1895.  The  General  Traffic  Association, 
which  was  a  combination  of  all  the  railroads  between 
New  York  and  Chicago,  was  attacked  by  the  United 
States  District  Attorney  for  the  Southern  District  of 
New  York  on  the  ground  that  it  was  a  combination  in 
violation  of  the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law.  Mr.  McFar- 
land,  the  United  States  Attorney  for  the  Southern  Dis 
trict  of  New  York,  appeared  before  the  Interstate  Com 
merce  Committee  of  the  United  States  Senate  and, 
under  oath,  made  the  following  .statement: 

"When  the  case  came  up,  Judge  LaCombs 
stated  in  his  opinion  he  was  disqualified  to 
hear  the  case,  or  any  proceedings  in  it,  as  at 
that  time  he  owned  bonds  or  stocks  in  some 
one  of  the  railroads,  and  he  also  .stated  that  he 
understood  that  most,  if  not  all,  of  the  judges 
of  that  circuit  were  under  the  same  disquali 
fication/' 

It  was  finally  decided  that  Judge  Wheeler,  the  Dis 
trict  Judge  of  the  Vermont  District,  was  apparently  the 
only  judge  in  the  circuit  who  was  not  under  a  disquali 
fication  similar  to  that  which  Judge  LaCombs  had 

188 


.stated  he  was  under,  namely,  the  holding  of  some  bonds 
or  stock  of  the  railroads.  The  case  was  finally  tried 
before  JudgeWheeler,  and  as  he  was  a  creature  of  the 
political  system  then  in  vogue,  that  is,  had  been  ap 
pointed  through  the  influence  of  the  senators  from 
Vermont,  one  of  those  senators — Edmunds,  of  Vermont 
— was  employed  by  the  railroads  as  one  of  their  attor 
neys  and  filed  a  brief  in  the  case. 

Judge  Wheeler  decided  the  case  in  favor  of  the  rail 
roads.  An  appeal  was  taken  by  the  United  States  to 
the  Circuit  Court,  and  then  Judge  LaCombs  stated, 
from  the  bench,  that  he  was  now  qualified  to  try  the 
case  because  he  had  disposed  of  his  stocks  and  bonds 
in  the  defendant  railroads.  He  thereupon  affirmed  the 
decision  rendered  by  Judge  Wheeler  and  the  case  went 
to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  The  Su 
preme  Court  reversed  the  decision,  but,  as  several 
years  had  elapsed  since  the  case  was  commenced,  the 
railroads  had  found  out  another  way  to  do  it,  so  it  cre 
ated  no  embarrassment  for  them  whatever. 

Very  prominent  lawyers  in  more  than  one  circuit 
have  told  me  that  when  a  circuit  or  district  United 
States  judge  had  a  son,  who  had  been  graduated  and 
was  ready  to  practice  law,  it  was  quite  common  for  the 
judge  to  call  upon  some  law  firm  employed  by  some 
trust  or  combination  and  say  that  his  son  was  now 
ready  to  enter  upon  the  practice  of  law,  and  ask  if  they 
knew  of  an  opening,  and  of  course  the  answer  was: 

"Send  him  right  over  here — we  have  been 
looking  for  just  such  a  man." 

So,  in  many  cases,  the  United  States  judge  sits  upon 
the  bench,  himself  having  been  graduated  from  the 
office  of  attorney  for  some  great  industrial  combina 
tion,  and  listens  to  the  reading  of  a  brief,  prepared  by 
his  own  son,  in  the  interest  of  the  corporation  for  whom 
the  judge  has  served  before  he  went  upon  the  bench. 

Thus  we  see  today  a  Federal  judiciary  is  composed, 
very  largely,  of  corporation  lawyers,  who  have  spent 

189 


their  lives  conniving  in  the  interests  of  the  great  cor 
porations  whose  attorneys  they  were,  and  who  without 
scruple  have  done  whatever  their  clients  demanded  in 
order  to  carry  their  point  and  more  successfully  exploit 
the  people  of  the  United  States.  When  such  lawyers 
get  upon  the  bench  their  former  practice  and  training 
asserts  it  .self  in  every  act.  Such  men  are  disqualified 
to  sit  on  a  jury,  and  all  the  more  are  they  disqualified 
to  sit  on  the  bench.  Chief  Justice  White  is  a  man  of 
little  ability  arid  no  genius.  He  was  a  Louisiana  lawyer 
and  attorney  for  the  sugar  interests ;  he  was  elected  to 
the  U.  S.  Senate  in  1890  and  was  assigned  to  the  Com 
mittee  on  Public  Lands.  I  was  a  member  of  that  com 
mittee,  so  I  became  very  well  acquainted  with  White  as 
a  senator.  He  was  a  man  of  very  ordinary  capacity  and 
in  no  way  qualified  for  the  Supreme  bench,  and  indeed 
so  much  so  that  I  was  very  much  surprised  when  Cleve 
land  even  made  him  Associate  Justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court  in  1894. 

The  lawyers  who  serve  monopoly  and  special  privi 
lege  try  to  create  the  impression  that  the  Supreme 
Court  is  infallible;  that  its  decisions  are  the  final  law 
of  the  land,  even  when  in  violation  of  the  Constitution, 
and  that  no  one  must  criticize  or  question  the  sanctity 
of  the  court.  Yet  the  present  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  is  a  most  ordinary  body  of  men.  No 
matter  who  their  predecessors  were,  they  certainly 
were  not  selected  because  of  their  wisdom,  genius  or 
learning.  They  are  a  long  way  from  being  infallible. 
In  fact,  the  records  of  the  Supreme  Court  show  that 
they  are  exceedingly  and  wilfully  fallible.  In  all  our 
history,  no  judge  ever  voted  other  than  with  the  polit 
ical  party  from  which  he  came. 

In  short,  the  obvious  and  ugly  truth  is  that  the 
United  States  courts  have  become  the  greatest  enemy 
to  justice,  and  the  greatest  menace  to  a  free  govern 
ment. 

190 


THE  REMEDY  FOR  JUDICIAL  USURPATION  AND 
TYRANNY 

The  time  has  come  when  this  growing  and  overshad 
owing  evil  must  be  checked.  There  are  today  but  two 
checks  on  the  Federal  judges.  First,  the  power  of  im 
peachment,  which  the  Constitution  vests  in  Congress; 
second,  the  power  of  removal,  which  the  Constitution 
vests  in  the  President,  by  and  with  the  advice  and  con 
sent  of  the  Senate. 

To  impeach  a  judge  and  remove  him  from  the  bench 
by  that  means  makes  it  necessary  for  the  House  of 
Representatives  to  formulate  and  present  impeachment 
charges,  and  to  convict  the  judge  of  treason  or  of  high 
crimes  and  misdemeanors,  and  by  a  two-thirds  vote  of 
the  Senate.  Congress  has  never  exercised  that  consti 
tutional  power  and  duty,  and  probably  never  will,  unless 
there  shall  be  a  revolution  at  the  polls,  on  that  specific 
issue,  against  some  judge  or  judges,  whose  corruption 
and  guilt  are  known  to  all  men. 

The  other  check,  the  power  of  the  President  to  re 
move  a  judge  by  and  with  the  advice  of  the  Senate, 
would  be  very  effective  if  we  had  a  President  who  would 
exercise  the  power  when  and  where  it  is  needed. 

It  is  a  common  error  that  Federal  judges  are  ap 
pointed  for  life.  The  \vords  of  the  Constitution  are 
that  the  President,  by  and  with  the  advice  and  consent 
of  the  Senate,  has  the  power  to  appoint  judges  "who 
shall  hold  their  offices  during  good  behavior" ;  the  com 
mission  which  every  judge  holds  today  so  reads. 

Thus  the  Constitution  clearly  puts  the  Federal 
judges  in  a  class  by  themselves,  and  requires  of  them 
a  higher  degree  of  accountability  than  is  required  of 
other  Government  officials.  Other  public  officials,  from 
the  President  down,  cannot  be  removed  from  office  until 
they  can  be  convicted,  by  a  two-thirds  vote  of  the  Sen 
ate,  of  being  guilty  of  the  "high  crimes"  which  are  pre 
scribed  for  impeachment.  But  a  Federal  judge  may 
not  stay  on  the  bench  until  he  has  reached  that  degree 

191 


of  known  unfi tness ;  he  must  live  and  act  on  the  bench, 
and  off,  up  to  the  high  standard  of  "good  behavior" 
which  he  was  deemed  to  possess  by  the  President  and 
the  Senate  when  he  was  appointed  and  confirmed. 
When  a  judge  ceases  to  be  a  man  of  "good  behavior/' 
such  as  he  was  required  to  possess  to  qualify  him  for 
appointment  as  judge,  he  at  once  becomes  disqualified, 
under  the  Constitution,  to  serve  longer  on  the  bench. 
Since  the  Constitution  does  not  prescribe  some  other 
way  of  determining  want  of  "good  behavior,"  that 
power  remains  inherently  in  the  appointing  powers, 
and  Congress  may,  by  law,  define  what  is  bad  behavior, 
if  Congress  chooses  to  do  so.  Therefore,  the  President, 
by  and  with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Senate,  has 
vested  in  him  primarily  the  constitutional  power  and 
duty  to  determine  when  a  Federal  judge  becomes  dis 
qualified  to  serve  for  want  of  "good  behavior."  The 
procedure  is  simple :  The  President,  having  determined 
that  a  certain  judge  no  longer  measures  up  to  the 
standard  of  "good  behavior,"  so  informs  the  Senate, 
when  nominating  his  successor.  If  the  Senate  concurs 
and  confirms  the  nomination,  then  the  judge  in  ques 
tion  is  pro-tanto  removed  for  want  oi'  "good  behavior," 
and  the  new  judge  takes  the  office  thus  vacated.  It  is 
most  remarkable  that  no  President  has,  so  far,  ever 
exercised  this  plain  constitutional  power  when  the  fre 
quent  occasion  for  its  exercise  has  made  it  a  most  vital 
presidential  duty. 

If  we  can  ever  elect  a  President  who  will  remove 
judges  who  shall  fall  below  the  standard  of  "good  be 
havior,"  which  the  Constitution  makes  an  essential 
qualification  for  a  man  to  continue  to  serve  as  judge, 
then  the  people  will  be  able  to  exert  at  each  presiden 
tial  election  their  reserved  power  for  the  correction  of 
judicial  usurpation  and  abuses. 

When  neither,  of  these  constitutional  checks  on  the 
judiciary  is  exercised,  then  the  Federal  judges,  realiz 
ing  that  they  are  free  from  any  kind  of  check  or  re 
straint,  and  responsible  to  no  one,  boldly  usurp  power 

192 


and  become  despots  of  the  most  vicious  and  dangerous 
kind.  This  is  the  condition  today,  and  this  is  what  is 
the  matter  with  the  Federal  judiciary. 

There  is  a  growing  popular  demand  for  an  amend 
ment  to  the  Constitution  to  make  the  judiciary  depart 
ment  of  the  Government  responsible  to  the  people,  as 
are  the  executive  and  legislative  departments.  But 
that  is  a  slow  and  uncertain  remedy. 

AN  IMMEDIATE  REMEDY  THAT  WILL  BE 
EFFICIENT 

There  is,  however,  an  immediate  remedy  before  us, 
without  amending  the  Constitution,  which  shall  be  ef 
fective  to  check  and  cure  most  of  the  evils  and  abuses 
from  which  we  now  .suffer.  It  is  simply  to  repeal  the 
act  of  Congress  creating  all  United  States  courts  infe 
rior  to  the  Supreme  Court,  thus  abolishing  all  Federal 
courts  inferior  to  the  Supreme  Court,  and  thus  con 
fining  the  operations  of  the  Supreme  Court  to  its  orig 
inal  jurisdiction,  as  clearly  defined  by  the  Constitution. 
The  language  of  the  Constitution  is  as  follows : 

"The  judicial  powers  of  the  United  States 
shall  be  vested  in  one  Supreme  Court  and  in 
such  inferior  courts  as  the  Congress  may 
from  time  to  time  ordain  and  establish.  .  .  . 
In  all  cases  affecting  ambassadors,  other  pub 
lic  ministers  and  consuls,  and  those  in  which 
the  State  shall  be  a  party,  the  Supreme  Court 
shall  have  original  jurisdiction.  In  all  other 
cases  before  mentioned,  the  Supreme  Court 
shall  have  appellate  jurisdiction  both  as  to  law 
and  facts,  with  such  exceptions,  and  under 
such  regulations  as  the  Congress  shall  make." 

It  is  clear  that  if  Congress  will  repeal  the  act  creat 
ing  the  United  States  courts  inferior  to  the  Supreme 
Court,  then  the  Supreme  Court  will  be  at  once  stripped 
of  all  appellate  jurisdiction  from  the  circuit  and  dis 
trict  courts.  This  will  leave  in  the  State  courts  the 

193 


constitutional  jurisdiction  which  Congress  has  con 
ferred  upon  the  inferior  United  States  courts.  This 
will  take  from  the  Supreme  Court  the  opportunity  to 
use  the  judicial  legerdemain  by  which  it  has  contrived 
to  usurp  the  power  to  declare  acts  of  Congress  uncon 
stitutional  and  to  render  legislative  decisions.  There 
will  then  be  no  hocus-pocus  by  which  the  court  can 
get  an  act  of  Congress,  before  it  to  be  repealed, 
amended  or  juggled.  This  will  be  perfectly  safe,  and 
is  indeed  the  only  way  to  safety;  because  if  Congress 
shall  make  a  mistake  about  the  Constitution,  the  people 
can  correct  it  at  the  next  election ;  but  if  the  Supreme 
Court  makes  a  mistake,  or  is  corrupt  as  it  surely  must 
have  been  in  the  cases  herein  cited — the  income  tax 
and  in  many  other  grievous  cases — then  the  unanimous 
vote  of  the  whole  electorate  is  powerless  to  correct  it 
until  the  Constitution  is  amended.  It  took  the  people 
twenty  years  to  do  that  in  the  income  tax  case,  and  now 
the  Supreme  Court  has  attacked  and  tried  to  destroy 
the  Income  Tax  Amendment  to  the  Constitution.  Such 
usurpation  will  never  stop  unless  this  remedy  is  ap 
plied. 

Last  April  I  sent  the  following  letter  to  every  mem 
ber  of  Congress  and  to  every  judge  of  the  Supreme 
Court : 

"Washington,  D.  C.,  April  10,  1920. 

"I  enclose  a  pamphlet  which  I  prepared 
some  years  ago  with  regard  to  the  United 
States  courts.  I  will  be  much  pleased  if  you 
can  find  time  to  read  it.  You  know  the  Su 
preme  Court  of  the  United  States  is  provided 
for  in  the  Constitution,  but  its  original  juris 
diction  is  limited  to  controversies  between 
states  and  to  the  consular  and  diplomatic  ser 
vice,  though  Congress  may  provide  certain  ap 
pellate  jurisdiction;  and  that  afterwards  Con 
gress,  by  an  act,  provided  for  the  United  States 

194 


Circuit  and  District  Courts.  It  is  through 
this  congressional  act  that  constitutional 
questions  have  been  raised  so  as  to  reach  the 
Supreme  Court. 

"The  framers  of  the  Constitution  never 
intended  that  the  courts  should  have  power  to 
nullify  an  act  of  Congress,  by  declaring  it  un 
constitutional.  That  was  supposed  to  be  the 
only  ground  for  veto  by  the  President.  But 
the  courts  have  usurped  this  authority  and  in 
the  recent  decisions  they  have  nullified  the 
Constitution  and  usurped  legislative  functions 
by  declaring  that  it  is  not  expedient  to  dis 
solve  the  steel  trust,  although  its  conduct  is  in 
plain  violation  of  the  statutes ;  and  in  the 
Abraham  case  they  have  .sent  three  men  to 
prison  for  twenty  years  for  doing  what  the 
minority  opinion  of  the  court  says  they  had  a 
perfect  right  to  do.  As  a  result  of  these  deci 
sions,  Senator  LaFollette  and  perhaps  others 
have  proposed  an  amendment  to  the  Constitu 
tion  of  the  United  States  changing  the  method 
of  selecting  our  United  States  judges.  I  sub 
mit  that  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  is 
not  necessary.  Besides,  that  method  of  secur 
ing  relief  from  such  obvious  usurpations  of 
power  is  slow,  difficult  and  possibly  impassible 
of  accomplishment.  Now,  what  I  propose  and 
all  that  is  necessary,  is  that  Congress  repeal 
the  law  creating  United  States  district  and 
circuit  courts,  and  leaving  the  cases  hereafter 
that  arise  between  citizens  of  the  United 
States  to  the  courts  of  the  various  states  for 
final  decision.  This  will  leave  the  Supreme 
Court  clothed  simply  with  authority  and 
jurisdiction  given  them  by  the  Constitution. 

"Courts  of  the  various  .states  are  elected  by 
the  people.  There  is  no  place  in  a  democracy 
for  officials  appointed  for  life ;  and  when  they 

195 


usurp  power  and  authority  and  violate  the 
Constitution  and  assume  legislative  powers,  it 
becomes  intolerable. 

"Very  truly  yours, 

"R.  F.  PETTIGREW, 

"Raleigh  Hotel." 

The  Supreme  Court,  as  I  have  shown,  was  created  by 
the  Constitution,  while  the  United  States  circuit  and 
district  courts  have  been  created  by  an  act  of  Congress. 

These  inferior  courts  were  established  by  Congress 
upon  the  theory  that  a  citizen  of  one  state  could  not 
get  justice  in  the  courts  of  another  state.  We  all  know 
that  a  citizen  of  Massachusetts  can  secure  justice  in 
the  courts  of  Illinois.  If  a  citizen  of  the  United  States 
goes  to  a  foreign  country,  he  and  his  property  submit 
to  the  courts  and  laws  of  the  country  where  he  happens 
temporarily  to  reside,  and,  therefore,  there  is  no  rea 
son  why  these  United  States  courts  should  exist. 

These  courts  do  not  properly  belong  to  our  system 
of  Government.  There  is  no  place  in  a  representative 
republic  for  an  officer  who  can  usurp  power  and  become 
a  despot.  Therefore,  these  courts  should  be  instantly 
abolished,  and  in  their  place  courts  substituted  that  are 
elected  by  the  people  subject  to  recall;  that  is,  courts 
of  the  several  states. 

If  the  people  are  capable  of  enacting  laws,  they  are 
capable  of  saying  what  they  meant  by  those  laws  when 
they  enacted  them;  and  the  right  to  recall  an  unfaith 
ful  servant  ought  to  be  as  great  on  the  part  of  the  peo 
ple  as  upon  the  part  of  an  individual. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  in  a  speech  at  Cincinnati,  on  Sep 
tember  15,  1859,  declared: 

"The  people  of  these  United  States  are  the 
rightful  masters  of  both  Congress  and  the 
courts,  not  to  overthrow  the  Constitution,  but 
to  overthrow  the  men  who  pervert  the  Con 
stitution." 

196 


Lincoln  said,  in  his  first  inaugural  address,  March  4, 
1861: 

"This  country  with  its  institutions  belongs 
to  the  people  who  inhabit  it.  WHENEVER 
THEY  SHALL  GROW  WEARY  OF  THE  EX 
ISTING  GOVERNMENT,  THEY  CAN  EX 
ERCISE  THEIR  CONSTITUTIONAL  RIGHT 
OF  AMENDMENT,  OR  THEIR  REVOLU 
TIONARY  RIGHT  TO  DISMEMBER  OR 
OVERTHROW  IT." 

The  Federal  courts  are  perverting  the  Constitution; 
they  are  undermining  the  foundations  of  free  govern 
ment;  these  usurpations  and  despotism  must  be 
stopped.  This  question  is  ,so  important  and  so  funda 
mental  that  immediate  action,  in  my  opinion,  must  be 
had  to  take  the  Government  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
lawyers  and  the  judges,  and  restore  it  to  the  people,  if 
we  wish  to  prevent  a  revolution  in  this  country. 

The  United  States  courts,  created  by  act  of  Congress, 
can  and  .should  be  abolished  by  act  of  Congress. 

They  do  not  belong  to  democratic  institutions. 


197 


XIV.     SENATES  AND  SENATORS 

The  control  of  the  machinery  of  the  Government  by 
the  business  interests  of  the  United  States  is  nowhere 
better  exemplified  than  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States.  I  was  a  member  of  the  Senate  for  twelve  years. 
During  that  time  the  Senate  never  legislated  for  the 
American  people  and  had  not  the  slightest  regard  for 
their  interests.  I  was  intimately  acquained  with  many 
of  the  Senators.  I  came  into  daily  contact  with  them, 
until  I  learned  how  they  acted,  under  a  give?i  set  of 
circumstances,  and  why. 

During  my  term  of  service  in  the  Senate,  lawyers 
always  made  up  the  majority  of  the  senators.  At  times 
as  many  as  three-quarters  were  lawyers.  Hence  fol 
lows  that  everything  I  have  .said  about  lawyers  applies 
generally  to  United  States  senators.  Indeed,  it  was 
my  two  terms  in  the  Senate  that  helped  me  to  form  my 
opinion  of  lawyers  and  their  practices. 

The  representatives  of  business,  who  held  seats  in 
the  Senate,  were  not  .satisfied  to  pass  the  laws  that 
their  clients  demanded.  They  went  out  of  their  way  to 
attacked  any  other  senator  who  held  a  brief  for  the 
interests  of  the  American  people.  After  I  had  gained  the 
reputation  of  being  anti-privilege  and  in  favor  of 
human  rights  above  property  rights,  they  came  at  me 
again  and  again. 

From  the  moment  that  I  took  sides  against  the  rail 
roads,  the  trusts  and  other  forces  of  imperialism,  I  was 
a  marked  man.  Senator  after  senator  felt  it  his  duty 
to  go  on  record  against  me  personally,  as  well  as  every 
thing  that  I  stood  for.  Depew,  representing  the  New 
York  Central;  Lodge,  representing  the  conservative 
propertied  interests  of  New  England;  Wolcott,  repre 
senting  every  interest  that  would  buy  him,  and  David 
B.  Hill,  a  representative  of  the  New  York  business  in 
terests,  scored  and  denounced  me. 

Chauncey  Depew,  as  one  of  his  first  acts  in  the  Sen 
ate,  delivered  a  speech  (February  7,  1900,  p.  1602),  in 

198 


which  he  denounced  my  attitude  toward  the  Philip 
pines. 

Even  more  personal  and  vindictive  was  the  attack  of 
Senator  Wolcott  (January  15,  1900,  pp.  810-12). 

In  reply,  I  merely  said : 

"Mr.  President,  the  senator  from  Colorado  says  that 
I  never  speak  a  kind  word  of  my  fellow-senators.  I  am 
not  going  to  dispute  that  assertion  except  to  say  that 
my  relations  are  most  pleasant  with  almost  all  of  my 
fellow-senators,  and  I  hope  he  will  not  undertake  to 
hide  the  whole  Senate  behind  his  large  personality.  I 
have  not  spent  much  time  in  laudation  of  him  because 
I  never  saw  anything  in  his  public  career  or  private  life 
worthy  of  praise ;  but  I  will  confess  one  thing,  and  that 
now,  which  ought  to  be  his  praise  and  his  advantage — 
he  has  a  loud  voice.  It  seems  to  me  that  his  attack 
upon  me  is  not  worthy  of  a  reply,  and  I  shall  not  reply 
to  it." 

With  most  of  these  men,  personally,  I  was  on  good 
terms,  but  when  it  came  to  political  and  economic 
views,  we  were  enemies.  Probably  under  such  circum 
stances  I  may  judge  the  Senate  and  the  senators  more 
harshly  than  they  deserve.  At  the  same  time,  I  do 
not  see  how  it  would  be  possible  to  exaggerate  their 
utter  fealty  to  business,  and  their  supreme  failure  to 
do  anything  or  even  think  of  anything  that  was  in  the 
public  interest. 

Naturally,  to  such  a  generalization,  there  were  a 
number  of  honorable  exceptions  as,  for  example,  that 
furnished  by  Senator  John  P.  Jones,  of  Nevada,  and 
Senator  Butler,  of  North  Carolina. 

Marion  Butler  was  elected  to  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States  in  1894  and  took  his  seat  in  1895,  which 
was  the  beginning  of  my  second  term.  So  he  served 
with  me  for  six  full  years.  He  was  elected  on  the  peo 
ple's  ticket  as  a  Populist.  He  was  but  30  years  of  age, 
a  lawyer  by  profession,  having  graduated  from  the 
University  of  Virginia,  and  was  the  youngest  man  in 
the  Senate  at  that  time. 

199 


Butler  was  a  man  of  very  decided  ability  and  of  strict 
integrity.  He  discharged  the  duties  of  his  office  with 
great  credit  to  himself  and  to  the  state  that  he  repre 
sented.  He  voted  with  me  on  almost  every  question, 
always  against  the  predatory  interests.  He  made  really 
the  most  brilliant  career  of  any  man  I  ever  knew  in 
the  Senate  during  his  first  term.  He  was  the  author  of 
the  Rural  Free  Delivery  service  of  the  Post  Office  De 
partment,  which  he  secured ;  also  the  appropriation  for 
the  building  of  the  first  submarine.  He  attacked  and 
exposed  the  infamy  of  Cleveland's  administration,  and 
his  bond  sales,  and  also  assisted  me  in  the  fight  with 
regard  to  the  railway  mail  pay,  and  in  the  armor-plate 
controversy  he  showed  up  many  remarkable  and 
startling  facts.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Committee 
on  Naval  Affairs,  and  was  a  sturdy  opponent  of  graft 
and  extravagance. 

John  P.  Jones  was  one  of  the  American  delegates  to 
the  "International  Monetary  Conference,"  held  at  Brus 
sels  in  1892.  His  fellow-commissioners  were  James  B. 
McCreary,  Henry  W.  Cannon,  president  of  the  Chase 
National  Bank  of  New  York,  and  E.  Benjamin  An 
drews.  These  gentlemen  knew  more  or  less  about 
money  and  finance,  and  they  signed  the  report.  There 
were  other  members  of  the  commission,  among  them 
Senator  Allison  of  Iowa.  He  did  not  sign  the  report. 
If  he  attended  the  Brussels  Conference  it  must  have 
been  as  an  onlooker,  for,  if  he  had  undertaken  to  dis 
cuss  the  question,  he  certainly  would  have  been  the 
laughing  stock  of  the  financiers  of  Europe. 

The  great  speech  of  that  conference  was  made  by 
John  P.  Jones  of  Nevada,  who  was  the  ablest  man  in 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States  during  the  twelve  years 
that  I  was  there.  He  was  a  careful  student,  had  a 
great  intellect,  and  understood  the  science  of  political 
economy  and  the  money  question.  His  speech  in  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States,  delivered  in  October,  1893, 
is  by  all  odds  the  greatest  contribution  to  the  science 
of  political  economy  now  in  print.  He  was  .seven  days 

200 


delivering  that  speech,  which  is  a  marvel  of  eloquence, 
composition  and  logic,  and  yet  there  were  never  more 
than  three  or  four  senators  listening  to  it.  As  soon 
as  Jones  arose  to  speak,  everyone  would  leave  the  Sen 
ate  chamber  in  order  to  be  sure  not  to  possess  any 
knowledge  upon  the  question  which  he  was  presenting. 
Statesmen  or  scholars  are  rare  in  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States  and  when,  by  accident,  one  does  get  in 
there  he  is  treated  like  a  pariah.  He  is  "not  their  kind" 
to  the  rest  of  the  senators  who  are  typical  products  of 
a  political  system  under  which  it  is  impossible  to  pro 
duce  scholars,  for  the  senators,  as  the  representatives 
of  the  great  industrial  and  financial  combinations  who 
own  and  run  the  Government  entirely,  are  expected  to 
have,  not  scholarship,  but  facility  in  managing  public 
affairs  in  the  interests  of  the  classes.  The  rights  of 
the  people  are  never  considered.  Few  senators  ever 
stop  to  ask  the  question,  "What  is  the  public  welfare  ?" 
Rather,  they  ask,  "What  does  my  client  want?" 

Senator  Jones  was  brought  up  on  a  farm  near  Cleve 
land,  Ohio.  When  about  twenty  years  of  age  he  joined 
with  others,  secured  a  sailing  vessel  of  250  tons,  sailed 
down  Lake  Erie  through  the  Welland  Canal,  across 
Lake  Ontario,  and  out  into  the  ocean  through  the  St. 
Lawrence  River,  and  went  around  the  south  end  of 
South  America  to  California  in  search  of  gold. 

It  wras  fortunate  that  Jones  did  not  have  a  college 
education ;  he  had  less  to  forget.  Our  colleges  do  not 
develop  to  any  great  degree  the  only  human  faculty 
that  distinguishes  men  from  the  animals — the  power 
to  reason.  On  the  contrary,  the  college  cultivates  the 
memory  and  develops  a  veneration  for  the  past.  Jones 
attended  the  "University  of  Hard  Knocks,"  which  is  a 
pretty  good  school  for  a  man  who  possesses  any  genius, 
because  his  mind  is  not  filled  up  with  the  doings  of  the 
dead  past,  and  he  has  not  learned  to  venerate  war  by 
reading  Caesar  until  he  thinks  that  war  is  the  only 
road  to  fame.  Jones  was  a  self-made  man  if  ever  there 
was  one,  and  he  surely  did  an  excellent  job. 

201 


After  the  bill  had  passed,  authorizing  the  .sending  of 
commissioners  to  the  Brussels  Monetary  Conference,  I 
was  in  New  York  and  the  president  of  the  Chase  Na 
tional  Bank,  Mr.  Cannon,  whom  I  had  known  in  the 
West,  told  me  that  President  Harrison  had  offered  to 
appoint  him  one  of  the  commissioners  to  the  Brussels 
Monetary  Conference.  He  wanted  to  consult  with  me 
as  to  whether  he  could  afford  to  lower  his  dignity  by 
accepting  the  appointment  in  view  of  the  fact  that  "the 
cowboy  senator  from  Nevada"  (Jones)  was  to  be  one 
of  the  commissioners.  In  reply  I  told  Cannon  that  he 
would  do  well,  before  going  to  Brussels,  to  read  Jones' 
report  on  the  Brussels  Monetary  Conference  of  1876. 
This,  I  told  him,  would  give  him  some  information  on 
the  subject.  If  he  could  not  find  time  to  read  that  re 
port,  I  advised  him  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  Jones 
at  the  earliest  moment  and  to  talk  with  him  all  he 
possibly  could  on  the  trip,  so  that  he  would  not  make 
himself  ridiculous  when  he  came  to  speak  at  the  con 
ference.  I  told  him,  further,  that  Jones  knew  far  more 
about  the  subject  than  any  other  man  in  the  United 
States,  and  that  he  could  express  what  he  knew  more 
logically  than  anybody  else. 

I  did  not  tell  Senator  Jones  until  after  he  had  re 
turned  to  this  country  what  Cannon  had  said,  because 
I  wanted  to  give  Cannon  a  show,  but,  after  our  com 
missioners  had  returned  and  had  made  their  report 
(and  the  report  was  written  by  Jones),  I  asked  the 
senator  one  day  what  he  thought  of  Cannon. 

"Well,"  he  replied,  "Cannon,  you  know,  like  all  bank 
ers,  has  no  knowledge  of  the  subject  of  money;  but 
then  I  got  along  all  right." 

Then  I  told  Jones  that  Cannon  had  consulted  with 
me  before  they  went  to  Brussels  as  to  whether  it  would 
comport  with  his  position  as  president  of  the  Chase 
National  Bank  to  accept  an  appointment  as  a  commis 
sioner  to  the  Brussels  conference  in  company  with  the 
cowboy  senator  from  Nevada. 

Jones  simply  smiled.    "Well,"  said  he,  "you  know  a 

202 


banker  has  no  time  to  spend  informing  himself  on  the 
money  question.  Cannon  probably  went  into  a  bank 
when  he  was  a  boy  and  grew  up  there.  He  learned,  or 
knew  as  much  about  the  money  question,  as  the  aver 
age  banker,  but  he  is  not  to  blame  for  that."  Jones 
chuckled,  and  then  added:  "A  little  incident  occurred 
after  we  returned  to  London,  at  the  close  of  the  Brus 
sels  conference,  which,  in  this  connection,  might  amuse 
you.  Rothschild,  the  great  London  banker,  was  a  dele 
gate  to  the  conference,  listened  to  my  speech  and,  im 
mediately  upon  our  return  to  London,  gave  a  dinner  in 
my  honor.  The  guests  were  the  great  financiers  and 
economists  of  England — and  Cannon  was  not  invited. 
In  introducing  me  at  the  dinner,  Rothschild  referred  to 
my  ,speech  on  the  money  question  at  the  Brussels  Mone 
tary  Conference  as  "the  greatest  recent  contribution  to 
the  science  of  political  economy.' ' 

The  next  time  I  saw  Cannon  I  questioned  him  about 
the  Brussels  conference  and  his  relations  with  Jones. 
He  said  that  Jones  was  a  very  pleasant  and  agreeable 
gentleman,  but  that  he  was  of  the  opinion  that  there 
were  other  men  at  the  conference  far  better  informed 
upon  the  question  than  Jones.  I  finally  said:  "By  the 
way,  Cannon,  did  you  attend  the  dinner  given  by  Roth 
schild  in  London  to  Jones,  at  which  he,  in  introducing 
Jones  to  the  guests,  said  that  Jones'  speech  was  the 
greatest  recent  contribution  to  the  science  of  political 
economy  ?" 

"Why,  no,"  answered  Cannon,  "I  didn't  know  there 
was  such  a  dinner." 

I  relate  this  incident  to  show  that  even  in  the  United 
States  Senate  there  are  men  whose  attainments  can 
command  respect  in  the  capitals  of  Europe.  But  such 
men  are  as  rare  as  genius.  The  rank  and  file  members 
of  the  Senate  are  such  stuff  as  political  bosses  and  po 
litical  henchmen  are  made  of.  Of  this  Knute  Nelson, 
of  Minnesota,  is  an  excellent  example. 

Knute  Nelson  was  elected  to  the  United  States  Sen 
ate  from  a  country  town  of  Minnesota,  where  he  was 

203 


practicing  law  and  earning  about  $500  a  year  by  patch 
ing  out  with  insurance  and  writing  deeds.  He  took  his 
seat  in  1895  at  the  commencement  of  my  second  term 
in  that  body. 

Since  he  arrived  in  the  Senate  he  has  been  a  subser 
vient  tool  of  the  exploiters,  never  failing  to  vote  in 
their  interest.  He  is  a  representative  of  the  two  per 
cent  of  our  population  who  own  sixty  per  cent  of  the 
wealth.  Needless  to  say,  he  has  done  better  in  the 
Senate  than  he  did  practicing  law  in  the  Minnesota 
village. 

In  1897,  when  the  McKinley  tariff  was  under  consid 
eration  in  the  Senate,  I  introduced  an  amendment  pro 
viding  for  the  admission,  free  of  duty,  of  all  articles 
that  competed  with  trust-made  products.  This  amend 
ment  was  printed  and  laid  upon  the  tables  of  the  sen 
ators  to  be  called  up  at  the  proper  time.  About  a  week 
afterwards,  Knute  Nelson  introduced  an  amendment  of 
the  .same  import  as  my  amendment,  and  had  it  printed 
and  laid  upon  the  tables.  He  waited  for  a  few  days  and 
then  came  over  to  my  seat  and  said  that  he  would  like 
to  have  me  withdraw  my  amendment  and  have  the  vote 
taken  on  his  amendment. 

''Nelson,"  I  said,  "why  not  let  my  amendment  be 
voted  down,  for  it  surely  will  be,  and  then  call  up  yours, 
and  I  shall  surely  vote  for  it." 

"But  I  want  you  to  withdraw  yours  so  that  I  can 
have  the  credit  of  this  effort  to  break  the  trust/' 

I  looked  at  him  for  a  moment  and  said:  "Nelson,  I 
would  withdraw  my  amendment  if  I  felt  certain  that 
after  I  had  done  so,  you  would  ever  offer  yours  or  bring 
it  up  for  consideration." 

He  seemed  offended  at  this  and  turned  away. 

When  the  time  came  to  call  up  my  amendment  there 
was  a  long  discussion  on  the  whole  question  of  tariffs 
and  protection.  During  this  discussion  I  showed  that 
the  duty  in  the  McKinley  bill  on  oil  and  sugar  was  a 
special  duty  intended  to  raise  the  price  of  both  of  these 
commodities  in  the  interest  of  the  trust  magnates.  I 

204 


read  from  Havemeyer's  testimony  passages  showing 
that  they  controlled  the  price  completely.  I  also 
showed  that  the  oil  trust  was  in  the  same  situation,  and 
I  charged  that  these  two  trusts  received  the  special 
fostering  care  of  the  Republican  party  because  of  their 
large  campaign  contributions  and  because  of  the  fact 
that  their  stocks  could  be  manipulated  to  buy  the  votes 
of  the  lawyers  in  the  Senate. 

My  amendment  to  the  McKinley  Tariff  Bill  finally 
came  up  for  a  vote  and  was  defeated  and  Nelson  voted 
against  my  amendment.  I  then  went  to  Nelson  and 
asked  him  if  he  was  going  to  offer  his  amendment. 
I  stated  that  I  would  like  to  have  him  do  so  and  I  would 
like  to  discuss  it  and  urge  its  adoption,  but  he  would 
give  me  no  answer;  I  waited  until  the  next  day  and 
then  I  offered  Nelson's  amendment. 

Nelson  voted  against  his  own  amendment  and  it  also 
was  defeated. 

It  was  as  I  had  suspected.  He  offered  his  amend 
ment  as  a  means  of  getting  me  to  withdraw  mine.  He 
had  no  intention  of  fighting  any  trust.  On  the  con 
trary,  he  was  as  favorably  inclined  toward  them  as  any 
one  I  ever  knew. 

During  the  same  debate  on  the  tariff,  ex-Governor 
Grier,  of  Iowa,  showed  himself  a  special  champion  of 
the  sugar-oil  combination.  He  was  outshone,  however, 
in  this  role,  by  Senator  Walcott,  of  Colorado,  a  lawyer 
with  little  knowledge  of  the  law  and  a  great  reputation 
as  a  phrase-maker.  Walcott  was  also  a  ispecial  cham 
pion  of  all  railroads. 

Walcott  entered  the  Senate  without  property.  He  had 
extravagant  tastes  and  habits.  His  salary  was  far  less 
than  enough  to  pay  his  current  bills.  Yet,  when  he 
died,  he  left  a  large  fortune. 

I  was  on  the  committee  charged  with  deciding  the 
membership  of  the  committees  of  the  Senate.  Senator 
Teller,  of  Colorado,  an  old  senator  and  a  man  of  integ 
rity  and  character,  came  to  me  and  insisted  upon  having 
Walcott  placed  upon  the  Committee  on  Finance,  which 

205 


was  the  most  important  committee  in  the  Senate  for 
a  lawyer  wishing  to  make  a  fortune.  Although  Wal- 
cott  had  just  entered  the  Senate,  I  knew  something  of 
his  character  and  caliber  and  I  told  Teller  that  I  would 
not  put  him  on  that  committee,  because  I  believed  that 
he  would  use  that  position  for  corrupt  purposes.  I 
stated  that  I  should  be  very  much  pleased  tf  put  him 
(Teller)  on  the  committee,  but  that  Walcott  should  not 
go  on.  But  Teller  insisted,  explaining  that  he  was  a 
candidate  for  re-election  and  that  Walcott  would  help 
him,  and  that  he  vouched  for  his  character  and  integ 
rity. 

As  a  result  of  Teller's  guarantee,  Walcott  went  on  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Committee  and  the  Finance  Com 
mittee,  which  possibly  accounts  for  the  great  fortune 
he  accumulated  while  he  was  in  the  Senate. 

Nelson  and  Walcott  were  individuals.  Their  treason 
to  the  best  interests  of  the  American  people  was  not 
confined  to  them.  It  was  a  part  of  the  atmosphere  in 
which  senators  lived. 

The  disgraceful  lengths  to  which  the  Senate  was 
used  as  a  bulwark  of  the  vested  interests  is  well  illus 
trated  in  the  fight  over  the  ratification  of  the  Spanish 
Peace  Treaty. 

While  the  Spanish  treaty  was  pending,  there  was 
bitter  opposition  to  it  because,  under  it,  we  were  to 
acquire  the  Philippine  Islands.  So  strong  was  the  pro 
test  against  annexing  the  Philippines  that  the  admin 
istration  leaders  were  unable  to  round  up  the  two- 
thirds  vote  necessary  to  pass  the  treaty. 

I,  as  leader  of  the  opposition,  had  canvassed  the  field 
thoroughly,  and  knew  that  they  would  have  to  use 
some  means  to  secure  votes  in  order  to  pass  the  bill. 
Aldrich,  who  was  paymaster  of  the  financial  combina 
tions,  the  trusts  and  the  railroads,  was  exceedingly  ac 
tive,  moving  around  among  the  senators  and  talking  to 
them  at  their  desks. 

One  day  Senator  Hoar  of  Massachusetts,  a  lawyer, 
came  to  me  and  said  that  he  thought  we  had  better 

206 


ratify  the  treaty  and  then  we  could  give  the  Philippines 
their  independence  afterwards.  He  had  made  a  .speech 
against  the  treaty  and  had  promised  to  fight  it  to  the 
end.  John  Spooner,  of  Wisconsin,  had  made  speeches 
against  the  treaty  and  promised  to  help  me  fight  it  to 
the  bitter  end,  and  even  to  filibuster  if  that  proved  nec 
essary.  He  voted  for  the  treaty.  When  his  term  ex 
pired,  he  went  to  New  York  and  began  the  practice  of 
law.  The  next  time  he  appeared  in  Washington  it  was 
as  the  attorney  for  J.  Pierpont  Morgan  &  Co. 

Senator  Hoar  voted  against  ratifying  the  treaty  with 
Spain  after  everybody  knew  that  Aldrich  had  votes 
enough  to  pass  the  treaty.  In  order  to  give  Hoar  an 
excuse  for  voting  against  the  treaty,  it  was  agreed  that 
he  should  offer  an  amendment  to  the  treaty  which 
would  be  rejected,  and  then  he  could  vote  against  the 
treaty  because  of  the  rejection  of  this  amendment.  In 
pursuance  of  this  agreement,  Hoar  offered  an  inconse 
quential  amendment  which  was  rejected  by  the  Senate 
without  debate  or  even  a  roll  call.  Immediately  there 
after  the  vote  was  taken  on  the  treaty  and  Hoar  voted 
against  the  treaty  and  gave  as  his  reason  that  his 
amendment  had  been  rejected. 

Billy  Mason,  of  Illinois,  and  McClaren,  of  South  Caro 
line,  had  both  made  long  speeches  against  the  ratifica 
tion  of  the  treaty.  Both  of  them  finally  voted  in  favor 
of  it.  Aldrich  used  to  go  and  talk  with  them  over  their 
desks  and  he  evidently  succeeded  in  convincing  them. 
The  day  before  the  vote  was  taken  on  the  ratification 
of  the  treaty,  I  went  to  Davis,  who  was  chairman  of 
the  Committee  on  Foreign  Affairs,  and  who  had  repre 
sented  the  United  States  at  Paris  when  the  treaty  was 
drawn  up.  Of  course,  he  was  pushing  for  the  ratifica 
tion  of  his  work. 

"Davis,"  I  said  to  him  over  his  desk  in  the  Senate, 
"you  are  going  to  ratify  this  treaty,  but  it  is  the  most 
terrible  thing  I  have  seen  in  my  twelve  years'  service 
in  this  body." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  he  asked. 

207 


"I  mean,"  I  replied,  "the  open  purchase  of  votes  to 
ratify  this  treaty  right  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  and 
before  the  eyes  of  the  senators  and  all  the  world." 

Davis  became  decidedly  serious.  He  looked  at  me 
and  .said  in  a  steady  voice,  "They  came  into  my  office 
and  tried  to  tell  me  about  it  and  I  said,  'Gentlemen,  get 
out  of  here.  You  cannot  open  your  stinkpot  in  my 
presence/  ' 

"Well,"  I  said,  "I  can  guess  who  came  to  your  room 
and  whom  you  ordered  out.  It  was  Aldrich,  of  Rhode 
Island." 

To  this  Davis  did  not  reply.  The  next  day  the  treaty 
was  ratified  by  a  majority  of  one. 

Great  crises  like  this  one  seldom  arise  in  the  Senate, 
but  when  they  do  there  are  always  enough  lawyers  on 
hand  to  do  the  work  that  the  corporations  want  done. 
Spooner,  Mason,  McClaren  were  all  of  them  lawyers. 

The  Senate  is  as  safe  for  plutocracy  and  imperialism 
on  small  issues  as  it  is  on  big  ones — even  to  the  altera 
tion  of  the  record  of  official  and  Senate  proceedings. 

In  February,  1901,  Queen  Victoria  died.  When  the 
news  was  transmitted  officially  to  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States,  Senator  Cockrell,  of  Missouri,  a  member 
of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations,  came  to  me 
with  the  following  resolution: 

"RESOLVED,  That  the  death  of  her  Royal  and  Im 
perial  Majesty  Queen  Victoria,  of  noble  virtue  and 
great  renown,  is  sincerely  deplored  by  the  Senate  of 
the  United  States." 

I  read  the  resolution  and  then  told  Cockrell  that  I 
certainly  did  object  to  it.  I  added  that  if  it  were  of 
fered  I  would  tell  the  whole  story  of  the  opium  war  and 
all  its  infamies  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate.  I  proposed 
to  show  how  the  English  Government  had  forced  opium 
upon  China  at  the  point  of  the  cannon ;  had  bombarded 
and  captured  her  ports  and  murdered  her  people,  in 
order  to  compel  the  Chinese  Government  to  allow  the 
English  Government  opium  monopoly  to  carry  on  its 
nefarious  business  among  the  Chinese  people.  I  pro- 

208 


posed  to  show,  further,  that  every  package  of  opium 
had  upon  it  the  coat  of  arms  of  Victoria,  Queen  of 
England.  In  consequence  of  this  opposition,  the  reso 
lution  was  not  presented  by  the  Committee  on  Foreign ' 
Relations  and  never  was  passed,  at  least  as  long  as  I 
was  a  member  of  that  body. 

However,  the  following  appears  in  the  Congressional 
Record  of  January  28,  1901  (p.  1288) : 

"Death  of  Queen  Victoria." 

Mr.  ALLISON :  "Mr.  President,  I  offer  a  resolution 
and  ask  unanimous  consent  for  its  immediate  consider 
ation.  The  resolution  will  be  read." 

The  secretary  read  as  follows: 

"RESOLVED,  That  the  death  of  Her  Royal  and  Im 
perial  Majesty,  of  noble  virtue  and  great  renown,  is 
sincerely  deplored  by  the  Senate  of  the  United  States 
of  America." 

THE  PRESIDENT  PRO  TEMPORE:  "Is  there  ob 
jection  to  the  present  consideration  of  the  resolution? 
The  Chair  hears  none.  The  question  is  on  agreeing  to 
the  resolution. 

Mr.  Allison  submitted  the  following  resolution  which 
was  considered  by  unanimous  consent  and  agreed  to. 

"RESOLVED,  That  the  President  pro  tempore  of 
the  Senate  causes  to  be  conveyed  to  the  Prime  Ministe^ 
of  Great  Britain  a  suitably  engrossed  and  duly  authen 
ticated  copy  of  the  foregoing  resolution." 

The  above  proceedings  never  occurred  in  the  Senate 
and  Allison  never  asked  or  received  unanimous  consent 
to  pass  the  above  resolution  in  relation  to  Queen  Vic 
toria,  The  Senate  had  a  practice  of  allowing  any  mem 
ber  to  make  any  correction  in  the  record,  which  he 
might  desire  to  make,  at  any  time  within  three  days, 
and  the  bound  volumes  or  permanent  record  are  made 
up  from  this  corrected  record.  Allison,  of  Iowa,  who 
was  known  as  a  "pussyfoot"  among  his  fellow-senators, 
evidently  had  that  item  put  into  the  permanent  record 
in  this  way,  and  then  notified  the  English  Government 
that  we  had  passed  the  above  resolution  in  relation  to 

209 


the  death  of  Queen  Victoria,  and  thus  prevented  me 
from  exposing  to  the  world  her  infamy  and  the  infamy 
of  the  British  Empire. 

These  are  but  instances  of  the  manipulation  that  I 
have  witnessed  in  the  Senate.  I  have  seen  senators 
change  long-held  convictions  over  night;  I  have  seen 
men  enter  the  Senate  poor  and  leave  it  rich ;  I  have  seen 
situations  ,saved  by  money,  and  imperialism  protected 
by  an  altered  record.  Each  time  that  these  changes  of 
mind  have  occurred  over  some  momentous  issue,  the 
change  has  taken  place  in  the  direction  of  the  wealth- 
owners  and  other  interests.  Not  once  was  the  public 
weal  ever  so  much  as  an  alleged  cause  of  action. 

The  Senate  is  declining  in  importance.  It  can  now 
be  ignored  by  business,  whereas,  twenty  years  ago,  it 
had  to  be  reckoned  with.  It  had  become  a  sort  of  stor 
age  plant  for  the  preservation  of  mediocre  intellects 
and  threadbare  reputations.  The  senators  themselves 
proclaim  this.  I  quote  from  the  official  record  of  a 
United  States  Senate  Committee: 

SENATOR  OVERMAN:  "The  Committee  will  come 
to  order.  Miss  Bryant,  do  you  believe  in  God  and  in 
the  sanctity  of  the  oath  ?" 

Miss  BRYANT:  "Certainly,  I  believe  in  the  sanc 
tity  of  the  oath." 

SENATOR  KING:   "Do  you  believe  in  God?" 

Miss  BRYANT:  "I  suppose  there  is  a  God.  There 
is  no  way  of  knowing." 

SENATOR  NELSON :  "Do  you  believe  in  the  Chris 
tian  religion?" 

Miss  BRYANT:  "I  believe  all  people  should  have 
any  ,sort  of  religion  they  wish." 

SENATOR  NELSON:  "You  are  not  a  Christian, 
then?" 

Miss  BRYANT:  "I  was  christened  in  the  Catholic 
Church." 

SENATOR  NELSON :  "What  are  you  now— a  Chris 
tian?" 

Miss  BRYANT:   "Yes,  I  suppose  I  am." 

210 


SENATOR  NELSON:  "And  do  you  believe  in 
Christ?" 

Miss  BRYANT:  "I  believe  in  the  teachings  of 
Christ." 

SENATOR  OVERMAN:    "Do  you  believe  in  God?" 

Miss  BRYANT:  "Yes,  I  will  concede  that  I  believe 
in  God,  Senator  Overman." 

SENATOR  KING:  "This  is  important,  because  a 
person  who  has  no  conception  of  God  does  not  have  an 
idea  of  the  sanctity  of  the  oath,  and  the  oath  would  be 
meaningless." 

SENATOR  WALCOTT:  "Do  you  believe  in  a  pun 
ishment  hereafter  and  a  reward  for  duty?" 

Miss  BRYANT:  "It  seems  to  me  as  if  I  were  being 
tried  for  witchcraft." 

SENATOR  OVERMAN:   "That  is  not  so  at  all." 

Miss  BRYANT :  "Very  well,  I  will  concede  even  that 
there  is  a  hell." 

SENATOR  OVERMAN:  "Now,  I  want  to  find  out 
about  matters,  in  Russia  and  what  you  have  observed 
there.  What  is  your  name?  Where  have  you  been 
living  since  you  have  been  in  Washington?" 

Miss  BRYANT:  "  I  stopped  for  a  while  at  the  Na 
tional  Woman's  Party  Headquarters.  .  .  ." 

SENATOR  NELSON :  "Did  you  belong  to  the  picket 
squad?" 

Miss  BRYANT:  "I  do  not  know  what  that  had  to 
do  with  Russia,  but  I  did.  I  believe  in  equality  for 
women  as  well  as  for  men,  even  in  my  own  country." 

SENATOR  NELSON:  "Did  you  participate  in  the 
burning  of  the  President's  message?" 

Miss  BRYANT:    "I  DID.'  ' 

SENATOR  NELSON:  "Did  you  participate  in  the 
burning  of  the  effigy?" 

Miss  BRYANT:  "I  did,  and  went  on  a  hunger- 
strike." 

SENATOR  OVERMAN:  "What  do  you  mean  by 
that?" 

(The  Senators  are  told  just  what  a  hunger-strike  is.) 

211 


SENATOR  KING:  "Where  did  you  live  before  you 
lived  in  New  York  ?  You  lived  in  Oregon,  did  you  not  ?" 

Miss  BRYANT :  "Yes,  sir,  but  I  do  wish  you  would 
let  me  tell  you  something  about  Russia." 

SENATOR  KING:  "And  your  husband  and  Mr.  Rhys 
Williams  were  on  the  staff  of  the  Bolsheviki  for  the 
purpose  of  preparing  propaganda  for " 

Miss  BRYANT:    "A  revolution  in  Germany." 

SENATOR  KING  (Shouting):  "For  the  Bolshe 
viki  !" 

Miss  BRYANT:  "No,  for  a  revolution  in  Germany. 
...  If  you  will  allow  me,  I  will  show  you  the  kind  of 
papers  they  printed  there.  There  has  never  been  any 
secret  about  this  propaganda.  For  instance 

SENATOR  NELSON :   "We  do  not  care  about  that." 

Miss  BRYANT:   "You  do  not  care  about  it?" 

SENATOR  NELSON:  "About  those  papers.  We 
want  facts !" 

Miss  BRYANT:  "These  papers  are  facts  and  you 
must  admit  the  facts.  Here  is  an  illustrated  paper  in 
German  prepared  for  sending  into  the  German  lines  in 
order  to  make " 

SENATOR  NELSON:    "Don't  be  so  impertinent." 

Woodrow  Wilson  must  have  had  episodes  like  this 
in  mind  when,  on  his  return  from  Paris  in  the  spring  of 
1919,  he  said:  "The  senators  of  the  United  States  have 
no  use  for  their  heads  except  to  serve  as  a  knot  to  keep 
their  bodies  from  unraveling." 

During  the  winter  of  1918  I  went  upon  the  floor  of 
the  Senate,  and  Lodge,  of  Massachusetts,  who  had 
served  with  me  in  the  Senate  for  several  years,  got  up 
from  his  seat  and  came  over  and  shook  hands  with  me. 

"Pettigrew,"  he  said,  "I  wish  you  were  here." 

"What  for?"  I  asked. 

"Why,"  he  answered,  "I  would  like  to  have  you  here 
to  shake  up  this  rotten  and  contemptible  Democratic 
administration." 

That  rather  amused  me,  because  I  was  not  prepared 

212 


to   hear  so  emphatic   and  pronounced   an   expression 
from  the  historian  of  Harvard. 

A  few  minutes  afterwards  I  went  over  to  the  Demo 
cratic  side  to  shake  hands  with  Senator  Tillman,  of 
South  Carolina,  who  had  also  served  several  years  with 
me  in  the  Senate.  Tillman  was  at  that  time  an  invalid 
and  unable  to  stand  upon  his  feet.  When  I  shook  hands 
with  him  he  pulled  me  down  near  to  him  and  said : 
"Pettigrew,  I  wish  you  were  back  here." 

"What  for?"  I  asked. 

"We  need  you  to  ,shake  up  this  rotten  and  corrupt 
Republican  party  in  the  Senate,"  he  replied. 

Then  I  went  over  to  Lodge  and  brought  him  to  Till- 
man's  chair.  First  I  told  Lodge  what  Tillman  had  said 
to  me  and  then  I  told  Tillman  what  Lodge  had  said  to 
me.  "Gentlemen,"  I  concluded,  "if  I  were  back  here  I 
am  sure  you  would  both  be  entirely  satisfied." 

Perhaps  I  can  best  conclude  what  I  have  to  say  about 
the  United  States  Senate  by  quoting  an  item  from  the 
Washington  "Post"  of  May  29,  1902: 

"SENATE  PASSES  WATER  POWER  BILL  WITH  25 
MILLION  LOCAL  ITEM  OMITTED 

The  Senate  yesterday  approved  the  conference  re 
port  on  the  water  power  bill  without  the  appropriation 
for  $25,000,000  for  the  development  of  the  Great  Falls 
water  power  project.  The  conference  report,  however, 
carries  $25,000  for  further  investigation  of  the  project. 
The  vote  was  45  to  21.  The  measure  now  goes  to  the 
President." 

A  determined,  though  futile,  attempt  was  made  by 
Senator  Norris  to  have  the  Great  Falls  item  restored  in 
the  conference  report.  He  said  that  since  1894  eleven 
investigations  had  been  made,  the  most  comprehensive 
by  Colonel  Langfitt,  now  General,  in  1913,  and,  in  his 
opinion,  Congress  should  authorize  the  development  of 
the  project  at  once. 

Senator  Norris  said  that,  with  the  development  of 
the  Great  Falls  project,  there  would  be  twice  as  much 

213 


power  as  would  be  needed  to  light  every  home  and  turn 
every  wheel  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  He  added 
that  there  should  have  been  no  coal  shortage  during 
the  war  or  last  winter,  nor  would  there  have  been  a 
water  shortage  if  the  work  recommended  in  1913  had 
been  pushed. 

At  this  juncture  of  his  speech,  Senator  Norris  was 
interrupted  by  Senator  Nugent,  who  asked  why  Colonel 
Langfitt's  report  had  not  been  followed. 

"In  my  opinion,  the  first  reason  is  the  Potomac  Elec 
tric  Power  Company,"  replied  Senator  Norris.  "The 
second  reason  is  the  Potomac  Electric  Power  Company, 
and  the  third  reason  is  the  Potomac  Electric  Power 
Company.  There  were  certain  other  outside  interests 
opposed  to  it  also." 

Senator  Nugent  then  asked  if  it  was  not  a  fact  that 
the  Washington  Railway  and  Electric  Company  and  its 
allied  corporation,  the  power  company,  have  blocked 
every  effort  of  Congress  to  develop  the  Great  Falls 
project. 

"Yes,  that  is  my  opinion,"  replied  Senator  Norris. 

It  is  the  old  story.  The  august  Senate  of  the  United 
States  in  leading-strings  to  a  public  utility  company 
that  has  held  its  grip  on  the  city  of  Washington  for  a 
generation.  In  this  little  thing,  as  in  many  a  greater 
thing,  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  has  proved  it 
self  a  faithful  servant  of  predatory  wealth. 

Charles  Francis  Adams  had  some  experience  with 
the  United  States  Senate,  as  he  was  elected  president 
of  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  by  the  Goulds  and  other 
gamblers  who  controlled  the  road  in  1884.  These  men 
chose  Adams  to  go  to  Washington  and  make  a  settle 
ment  with  the  Government  for  the  second  mortgage 
which  the  Government  held  on  the  road.  Ames  had 
been  in  Washington  before  and  had  organized  the 
Credit  Mobilier  and  had  bought  both  the  House  and 
Senate  when  the  bill  was  passed  giving  the  Union  Paci 
fic  Road  the  land  grant  and  the  money  to  build  the  road, 
and  so  it  would  not  do  for  Ames  to  go  to  Washington. 

214 


The  Goulds,  who  owned  the  road  with  Ames,  were  the 
most  disreputable  gamblers  in  the  United  States. 
They  could  do  nothing  in  Washington,  .so  the  scamps — 
these  leading  financiers  —  selected  Charles  Francis 
Adams  to  go  to  Washington  and  see  what  could  be  done. 

Adams  failed  because  he  refused  to  corrupt  the 
Houses  of  Congress  or  the  members  thereof,  and  be 
cause  he  would  not  do  their  kind  of  work.  He  was  at 
once  removed  as  president  of  the  Union  Pacific  Rail 
road. 

I  quote  from  page  192  of  Charles  Francis  Adams' 
autobiography : 

"I  was  sent  over  to  Washington  to  avert  the  threat 
ened  action  of  the  Government,  and  then  and  there  I 
had  my  first  experience  in  the  most  hopeless  and  repul 
sive  work  in  which  I  ever  was  engaged — transacting 
business  with  the  United  States  Government  and  try 
ing  to  accomplish  something  through  congressional  ac 
tion.  My  initial  episode  was  with  a  prominent  member 
of  the  United  States  Senate.  This  senator  is  still 
(1912)  alive,  though  long  retired.  He  had  a  great 
reputation  for  ability  and  a  certain  reputation,  some 
what  fly-blown,  it  is  true,  for  rugged  honesty.  I  can 
only  say  that  I  found  him  an  ill-mannered  bully  and  by 
all  odds  the  most  covertly  and  dangerously  corrupt  man 
I  ever  had  opportunity  and  occasion  carefully  to  ob 
serve  in  public  life.  His  grudge  against  the  Union  Pa 
cific  was  that  it  had  not  retained  him.  While  he  took 
excellent  care  of  those  competing  concerns  which  had 
been  wiser  in  this  respect,  he  never  lost  an  opportunity 
of  posing  as  the  fearless  antagonist  of  corporations 
when  the  Union  Pacific  came  to  the  front.  For  that 
man,  on  good  and  sufficient  grounds,  I  entertained  a 
deep  dislike.  He  was  distinctly  dishonest — a  senatorial 
bribe-taker." 

I  have  tried  to  decide  who  this  senator  was  and  I  am 
of  the  opinion  it  was  Edmunds  of  Vermont.  Adams 
should  have  given  the  name  of  the  man,  but  I  do  Ed- 

215 


munds  no  injustice  by  stating  that,  in  my  opinion,  he 
was  the  man,  although  there  were  many  other  lawyers 
in  the  Senate  at  that  time  that  would  answer  Adams' 
description,  and  would  do  just  what  Adams  describes — 
and  I  know  them  all  personally. 

Marion  Butler  was  elected  to  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States  in  1894  and  took  his  ,seat  in  1895,  which 
was  the  beginning  of  my  second  term.  So  he  served 
with  me  for  six  full  years.  He  was  elected  on  the  peo 
ple's  ticket  as  a  Populist.  He  was  but  30  years  of  age, 
a  lawyer  by  profession,  having  graduated  from  the 
University  of  Virginia,  and  was  the  youngest  man  in 
the  Senate  at  that  time. 

Butler  was  a  man  of  very  decided  ability  and  of  strict 
integrity.  He  discharged  the  duties  of  his  office  with 
great  credit  to  himself  and  to  the  state  that  he  repre 
sented.  He  voted  with  me  on  almost  every  question, 
always  against  the  predatory  interests.  He  made  really 
the  most  brilliant  career  of  any  man  I  ever  knew  in  the 
Senate  during  his  first  term.  He  was  the  author  of 
the  Rural  Free  Delivery  service  of  the  Post  Office  De 
partment;  he  secured  the  appropriation  for  the  build 
ing  of  the  first  submarine.  He  attacked  and  exposed 
the  infamy  of  Cleveland's  administration,  and  his  bond 
sales,  and  also  assisted  me  in  the  fight  with  regard  to 
the  railway  mail  pay,  and  in  the  armor-plate  contro 
versy  he  showed  up  many  remarkable  and  startling 
facts.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Committee  on  Naval 
Affairs,  and  was  a  sturdy  opponent  of  graft  and  ex 
travagance. 


216 


XV.     TEN   PRESIDENTS 

I  have  been  personally  acquainted  with  every 
president  of  the  United  States  from  Andrew  John 
son  to  Woodrow  Wilson.  With  some  of  them  my 
acquaintance  was  very  slight.  Others  I  knew  in 
timately  for  many  years.  I  saw  enough  of  all  of 
them  to  form  a  pretty  definite  idea  of  their  qualities. 

These  ten  presidents  \vere  not  brainy  men.  They 
were  not  men  of  robust  character.  They  were  pli 
able  men,  safe  men,  conservative  men.  Many  of 
them  were  usable  men,  who  served  faithfully  the 
business  interests  that  stood  behind  them.  All  but 
two  of  them  were  lawyers,  and  they  took  into  the 
presidency  the  peculiar  limitations  under  which  law 
yers  suffer. 

I  met  Grant  first  in  his  first  term — in  the  winter  of 
1871-1872 — and  our  acquaintance  lasted  as  long  as 
he  lived.     Grant  was  a  soldier — not  a  president— 
but  he  filled  the  office  as  acceptably  as  a  general 
could  be  expected  to  do. 

Among  the  ten  presidents,  I  am  of  the  opinion 
that  William  H.  Harrison  was  pre-eminent  in  ability 
and  character.  He  was  elected  in  1888,  beating 
Cleveland,  who  was  then  a  candidate  for  a  second 
term.  Although  Harrison  was  a  strong  man,  he  was 
not  a  leader.  He  misjudged  the  political  machinery 
of  the  Republican  party  and  had  a  reputation  of 
being  the  most  ungrateful  person  that  ever  occupied 
the  White  House.  At  the  outset  he  proclaimed  his 
opposition  to  bosses  and  to  machine  control  in  the 
Republican  party.  As  soon  as  he  was  elected  presi 
dent,  he  began  to  build  up  a  machine  of  his  own, 
using  his  patronage  as  a  bait  and  a  whip,  and  dis 
regarding  the  leaders  and  bosses  entirely. 

Soon  after  I  came  to  the  Senate,  in  December, 
1889,  I  went  to  see  the  President  about  some  of  the 
appointments  in  the  State  of  South  Dakota,  which 
had  just  been  admitted  into  the  Union.  The  Presi- 

217 


dent  immediately  gave  me  to  understand  that  he 
thought  I  was  the  political  boss  of  Dakota  and  that 
he  would  have  to  look  into  the  recommendations 
which  I  made.  I  do  not  think  he  ever  appointed 
anyone  to  any  political  position  because  of  my  en 
dorsement.  I  am  informed  that  he  treated  the  lead 
ers  in  the  other  states  in  the  same  manner. 

Any  sort  of  president,  Republican  or  Democrat, 
can  renominate  himself  for  a  second  term.  The 
power  that  he  holds  through  his  patronage  and  his 
veto  enables  him  to  appeal  to  the  personal  interest 
of  a  large  number  of  influential  men  and  thus  to 
compel  their  support. 

The  Republican  leaders  were  strongly  opposed  to 
Harrison  and  to  his  re-election.  Quay  and  Cameron, 
of  Pennsylvania,  Farwell,  of  Chicago,  Tom  Platt,  of 
New  York,  and  a  large  number  of  others  held  con 
ference  after  conference  with  a  view  to  choosing  his 
successor.  They  knew  the  power  of  the  machine 
that  the  President  had  built  up  and  knew  it  was  dif 
ficult  to  accomplish  their  purpose,  but,  after  much 
consideration,  they  finally  decided,  at  a  meeting 
which  I  attended,  to  persuade  Elaine  to  be  a  can 
didate. 

It  had  been  the  ambition  of  Blame's  life  to  be 
president,  and  we  had  hoped  to  get  him  into  the  field 
as  the  only  person  who  could  beat  Harrison.  He  was 
at  that  time  a  member  of  Harrison's  Cabinet  and 
Secretary  of  State.  I  was  delegated  to  see  Elaine 
and  to  report  on  his  attitude.  I  went  to  Elaine's 
house  on  McPherson  Square,  in  front  of  the  White 
House,  and  had  several  conversations  with  him.  In 
every  instance  he  said  that  he  would  accept  the  nom 
ination  but  that  he  would  not  seek  it,  nor  would  he 
be  a  candidate.  At  the  last  interview,  just  before 
we  went  to  Minneapolis  for  the  National  Conven 
tion,  he  told  me  that,  in  his  opinion,  if  he  were  nom 
inated  he  would  not  live  through  the  campaign,  be- 

218 


cause  of  the  bad  state  of  his  health.  Therefore,  he 
was  resolved  to  do  nothing  to  aid  in  securing  his 
nomination. 

When  we  arrived  at  the  convention  we  found 
everything  cut  and  dried  for  Harrison's  renomina- 
tion,  and  he  was  nominated  almost  immediately. 
After  the  nomination  had  been  made,  a  committee 
of  his  followers  came  to  us — by  "us"  I  mean  the 
political  managers  of  the  Republican  Party  in  the 
various  states  of  that  date — and  wanted  us  to  name 
the  vice-president.  We  replied  that  we  would  do 
nothing  of  the  kind.  It  was  their  ticket,  nominated 
without  even  consulting  us,  and  it  was  their  job  to 
elect  it. 

Levi  P.  Morton  was  Vice-President  and  Presi 
dent  of  the  Senate  during  Harrison's  first  term.  He 
was  a  capable  and  cordial  gentleman  of  whom  we 
were  all  very  fond,  and  we  supposed,  of  course,  that 
he  would  be  nominated  by  Harrison's  crowd,  but 
he  was  passed  over  and  WHITELAW  REID  was 
nominated  in  his  place. 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  discussion  over  the  mat 
ter  and  reporters  tried  to  interview  us  on  the  out 
come  of  the  convention.  We  all  refused  to  be  inter 
viewed  but  one  reporter  did  get  into  Quay's  room, 
and  asked  him  what  he  thought  of  the  ticket  put  up 
at  Minneapolis.  Quay  gazed  out  of  the  window,  and 
in  his  quaint  way  said,  "It  looks  as  though  it  might 
snow!" 

I  returned  to  Washington  before  any  of  the  other 
senators  and  the  moment  I  went  upon  the  floor  of 
the  Senate,  Morton,  who  was  in  the  chair,  came  over 
to  where  I  was  sitting  and,  in  a  very  hurt  tone  of 
voice,  wanted  to  know  why  he  was  not  nominated 
with  Harrison.  I  told  him  the  facts — that  Harri 
son's  followers  had  sent  a  delegation  to  us  asking 
us  to  name  the  vice-president;  that  we  told  them  it 
was  their  ticket;  and  that  they  would  have  to  elect  it 

219 


and,  therefore,  they  should  designate  Harrison's  run 
ning  mate.  I  added,  "We  supposed  of  course  that 
they  would  nominate  you,  but  we  also  believe  that 
Harrison  will  be  defeated  and,  therefore,  we  did  not 
wish  to  participate  in  the  nomination." 

Harrison  selected,  for  the  important  post  of  Chair 
man  of  the  Republican  National  Committee,  Senator 
Carter,  of  Montana.  Tom  Carter  was  a  bright  man. 
He  was  a  lawyer  of  considerable  ability  and  had  a 
wide  knowledge  of  the  law,  but  he  was  ignorant  of 
the  methods  employed  by  the  Republican  Party  ma 
chine  to  win  a  campaign. 

Carter  did  not  know  how  to  go  about  reaching 
the  bankers,  the  railroad  financiers,  the  trust  mag 
nates  and  the  other  exploiters  who  controlled  the 
surplus  of  American  wealth.  He  did  secure  a  con 
tribution  of  $400,000  from  Cramp,  the  shipbuilder, 
by  telling  Cramp  that  if  he  put  up  $400,000  it  would, 
beyond  a  doubt,  elect  Harrison.  He  also  told  Cramp 
where  the  money  would  be  laid  out  in  order  to  secure 
this  result,  and  assured  him  that  he  would  see  that 
Cramp  got  the  money  back  out  of  building  ships  for 
the  Government  as  soon  as  Harrison  took  office. 

Campaign  funds  were  not  usually  raised  in  this 
rough  fashion.  Instead,  the  campaign  managers 
went  to  the  real  government,  the  managers  of  rail 
roads,  the  great  industrial,  financial  and  transporta 
tion  interests,  and  secured  their  contribution  with 
out  any  direct  promise  as  to  the  method  of  using  the 
funds,  leaving  that  to  come  along  as  a  matter  of 
course  in  case  of  success. 

Had  the  Republican  managers  been  in  control  of 
the  campaign,  none  of  these  sources  would  have  been 
neglected.  As  it  was,  while  Tom  Carter's  crowd  was 
fooling  around,  these  sources  of  funds  were  pre-empted 
by  Grover  Cleveland,  who  was  the  Democratic  can 
didate  against  Harrison.  As  a  result  of  this  mis- 

220 


management,  Harrison  was  badly  beaten  at  the  polls 
and  Grover  Cleveland  was  elected  in  his  place. 

Never  do  I  hope  to  deal  with  a  more  difficult  hu 
man  being  than  Grover  Cleveland.  His  naturally 
perverse  disposition  was  supplemented  by  personal 
habits  that  made  it  next  to  impossible  for  anyone  to 
work  with  him. 

In  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  on  June  3, 
1896,  I  made  a  speech  on  the  River  and  Harbor  Bill 
that  was  then  under  consideration.  Cleveland  had 
vetoed  the  bill,  and  while  I  was  opposed  to  it  I  felt 
bound  to  vote  for  its  passage  over  the  veto,  because  I 
believed  that  the  President  had  violated  his  oath  of 
office  by  vetoing  the  bill.  I  believe  that  the  veto 
power  was  never  intended  by  the  Constitution  or  its 
framers  to  be  used  as  a  legislating  instrument.  In 
that  speech  I  referred  to  Grover  Cleveland  as  fol 
lows: 

"The  present  occupant  of  the  White  House  is  not 
content  with  the  violation  of  the  Constitution  by  the 
exercise  of  the  veto  power  alone,  but  with  an  utter 
disregard  of  his  sacred  oath  of  office,  as  well  as  the 
Constitution,  he  overrides  the  lawrs,  influences  con 
gressmen  with  patronage,  enriches  his  favorites  at 
the  public  expense — in  fact,  permits  no  restraint  but 
his  imperial  will.  I  think  he  might  fairly  be  charged 
with  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors.  He  has  exer 
cised  the  veto  power  in  direct  violation  of  the  Con 
stitution.  He  has  appointed  men  to  office  without 
the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Senate.  He  has  defied 
the  Senate  and  the  Constitution  alike  by  appointing 
men  to  official  positions  after  the  Senate  has  twice 
refused  its  consent,  and  still  retains  them  in  office. 

"During  his  first  term  he  openly  used  his  appoint 
ing  power  to  intimidate  members  of  Congress,  and 
during  his  second  term  he  had  given  appointments 
to  members  of  Congress  for  the  purpose  of  securing 
their  votes  upon  measures  pending  in  the  two  Houses. 

221 


"On  his  own  motion  he  has  undertaken  to  over 
throw  the  Hawaiian  Government,  doing  acts  in  di 
rect  violation  of  the  Constitution.  He  has  borrowed 
money  in  violation  of  the  law  for  ordinary  expenses  of 
the  Government,  and  then  falsified  the  facts  in  re 
lation  thereto  in  a  message  to  Congress.  He  has 
refused  to  remit  taxes  as  required  by  law,  and  has 
collected  taxes  unlawfully.  He  has  refused  to  en 
force  the  laws  of  Congress  so  often  that  the  list  of 
violations  is  next  only  to  the  list  of  his  vetoes.  He 
has  sold  bonds  at  private  sale  to  his  favorites  and 
former  associates  upon  terms  and  at  a  price  many 
millions  of  dollars  below  the  market  price  of  the 
bonds  on  the  day  of  such  private  sales.  In  view  of 
these  facts  it  is  time  for  Congress  to  give  some  atten 
tion  to  these  usurpations.  If  this  Government  is  to 
survive,  we  can  no  longer  look  with  indifference  upon 
the  shameful  autocracy  of  Grover  Cleveland." 

In  this  connection,  I  referred  to  his  veto  record  as 
unparalleled  in  our  history,  and  showed  that  he  had 
vetoed  up  to  the  first  of  May,  1896,  551  bills  in  his  two 
terms  as  President,  while  all  the  other  Presidents  of 
the  United  States  together  had  vetoed  but  109  bills 
passed  by  Congress. 

Cleveland  was  reputed  to  have  certain  rugged  vir 
tues.  The  only  one  that  I  remember  his  friends  boast 
ing  about  was  that  he  should  do  as  he  agreed.  He 
continued  his  career  as  a  vetoer  until  the  end  of  his 
term,  or,  rather,  until  the  end  of  January,  1897.  During 
February  he  was  reported  to  be  so  drunk  that  he  was 
incapacitated  from  public  business.  A  prominent  Dem 
ocratic  member  of  Congress  told  me,  at  that  time,  that 
he  went  to  the  White  House  to  see  the  President  and 
found  Cleveland  lying  on  the  floor  in  a  rather  hilarious 
state  of  intoxication.  Many  other  stories  of  a  similar 
character — many  of  them  worse — came  to  our  ears 
during  the  last  days  of  this  disgraceful  administra 
tion. 

222 


Most  of  the  great  appropriation  bills  are  passed  dur 
ing  the  closing  days  of  Congress.  An  act  of  Congress, 
having  been  sent  to  the  President,  must  be  vetoed  by 
him  within  ten  days,  otherwise  it  becomes  a  law  with 
out  his  signature  if  Congress  is  in  session.  If  Congress 
expires  during  the  ten  days,  the  unsigned  bill  is  not  a 
law,  and  this  is  called  a  pocket  veto.  Cleveland  thus 
vetoed  all  of  the  bills  which  were  sent  to  him  during 
the  last  ten  days  of  Congress.  Thus  he  made  it 
necessary  for  his  successor,  McKinley,  to  call  an  extra 
session  of  Congress  immediately,  in  order  to  pass  the 
appropriation  bills  and  thus  secure  sufficient  funds  for 
the  running  of  the  Government. 

On  the  4th  of  March,  Grover  Cleveland  came  to  the 
Senate,  as  is  the  custom,  to  see  his  successor  inaugu 
rated.  My  seat  was  the  first  seat  on  the  main  aisle. 
Grover  Cleveland  was  brought  in  by  two  or  three  men 
and  placed  in  a  chair  right  across  the  aisle  from  me. 
He  was  still  stupidly  intoxicated,  his  face  was  bloated, 
and  he  was  a  sight  to  behold.  He  did  not  seem  to  know 
what  was  occurring,  but  looked  like  a  great  lump  of 
discolored  flesh.  When  McKinley  had  delivered  his  ad 
dress  and  had  taken  his  oath  of  office,  Cleveland  was 
carried  out  of  the  Senate  by  the  men  who  brought  him 
in,  and  I  understand  was  loaded  into  a  carriage  and 
taken  to  the  wharf  in  Washington  and  there  loaded  on 
a  yacht — and  I  think  it  was  Benedict's  yacht  (he  was 
a  very  wealthy  man,  a  citizen  of  New  York,  and  was 
one  of  the  chief  factors  in  running  Cleveland's  admin 
istration  in  the  interests  of  big  business).  The  yacht 
sailed  down  the  Potomac  with  Cleveland  for  a  few 
weeks  so  that  he  could  wind  up  his  spree. 

I  have  not  written  about  Grover  Cleveland  for  the 
purpose  of  attacking  him  or  his  private  life,  or  from 
any  feeling  of  personal  animosity  or  ill-will,  but  be 
cause  these  things  are  a  part,  and  a  vital  part,  of  his 
public  and  official  life  as  President  of  the  United  States, 
and  account  for  his  erratic  conduct  as  chief  executive 
of  this  great  nation,  and  no  accurate  history  of  his  ca- 

223 


reer  as  President  can  be  written  and  fail  to  consider  the 
two  Clevelands — drunk  and'  sober.  His  ultimatum  to 
England  in  the  Venezuela  affair;  his  conduct  with  re 
gard  to  Hawaii,  and  his  hundreds  of  vetoes  and  his 
bond  sales,  in  violation  of  his  oath,  and  of  the  Consti 
tution,  can  in  this  way  only  be  accounted  for. 

None  of  his  successors  approached  Cleveland  in  per 
sonal  uncleanliness,  but  the  political  records  of  some  of 
them  were  far  from  enviable. 

I  took  my  seat  in  the  Senate  in  December,  1889.  Dur 
ing  that  session  of  Congress  the  McKinley  Tariff  Bill 
was  under  discussion  in  the  House  of  Representatives, 
and  I  think  the  only  thing  for  which  I  was  interested  in 
having  tariff  protection  was  metallic  tin  cacitevite.  I 
interviewed  members  of  the  House  Committee,  of 
which  William  McKinley  was  chairman,  and  asked  that 
a  certain  duty  be  placed  on  metallic  tin. 

LaFollette,  of  Wisconsin  (now  Senator  LaFollette), 
was  a  member  of  this  committee.  I  had  known  him 
from  boyhood  and  we  were  good  friends ;  consequently, 
he  promised  to  attend  to  the  matter  of  the  tariff  on  tin 
for  me.  However,  I  ,saw  nearly  every  member  of  the 
committee,  including  the  chairman,  Mr.  McKinley,  and 
I  got  from  McKinley  a  definite  promise  that  he  would 
do  all  he  could  to  secure  the  tariff  I  wanted  on  metallic 
tin. 

Dalzell,  of  Pennsylvania,  was  a  member  of  the 
committee  from  Pittsburgh,  where  they  made  tin 
plate.  His  clients  wanted  a  very  high  tariff  on  tin 
plate  but  wanted  the  metallic  tin  to  come  in  free  of 
duty  so  that  the  manufacturers  of  the  black  plates 
might  make  an  added  profit.  Dalzell  told  me  that 
he  was  opposed  to  any  tariff  upon  metallic  tin,  which 
made  me  still  more  active  until  I  thought  I  had  the 
promise  of  the  majority  of  the  committee  to  stand 
for  a  tariff  on  metallic  tin. 

When  the  matter  came  up  for  a  vote  in  the  com 
mittee  (I  think  the  whole  committee  was  present), 

224 


the  vote  on  the  tin  schedule  was  a  tie.  The  chair 
man,  McKinley,  was  compelled  to  cast  the  deciding 
vote,  and  he  voted  against  the  duty  and  against  what 
he  had  specifically  promised  me.  LaFollette  imme 
diately  wrote  down  the  names  of  the  committee  mem 
bers  who  had  voted  for  and  against  the  tariff  on 
tin  and  also  the  fact  that  McKinley  had  cast  the 
deciding  vote  against  me,  and  sent  it  by.  a  page  over 
to  the  Senate. 

I  went  over  to  the  House  of  Representatives  and, 
as  I  went  upon  the  floor  of  the  House  in  the  direc 
tion  of  McKinley's  seat,  I  met  McKinley  in  the  aisle 
coming  from  the  session  of  the  tariff  committee. 

"McKinley,"  I  said,  "how  are  you  getting  along 
with  the  duty  on  metallic  tin?" 

He  was  very  patronizing  and  conciliating.  "Well, 
Senator/'  he  said,  "I  do  not  believe  we  can  get  it 
through  my  committee." 

"How  in  the  devil  do  you  expect  to  get  it  through 
your  committee,"  I  replied,  "when  you  vote  against 
it  yourself?" 

He  shrank  a  little  under  my  remark,  then  he  ral 
lied  and  said:  "Well,  I  concluded  that  it  was  not 
best  to  put  a  duty  on  metallic  tin." 

"If  you  had  told  me  that  in  the  first  place,"  I  an 
swered,  "instead  of  lying  to  me  about  it,  I  would 
have  some  respect  for  you.  That  would  have  given 
me  a  chance  to  have  worked  a  little  harder  and  to 
find  someone  on  the  committee  that  would  tell  the 
truth." 

The  incident  gave  me  an  insight  into  McKinley's 
character  and  may  possibly  have  had  something  to 
do,  in  addition  to  other  things,  with  my  walking  out 
of  the  St.  Louis  Convention  in  1895,  after  McKinley's 
nomination.  I  always  had  the  impression  that  the 
course  pursued  by  McKinley  in  the  committee  of  the 
House  was  characteristic  of  the  man,  and  I  am  still 

225 


of  the  opinion  that  as  President  he  continued  the 
same  practices. 

There  is  nothing  that  better  illustrates  President 
William  McKinley  than  his  agreement  with  the  Sultan 
of  Sulu,  and  his  double  dealing  in  connection  with  the 
same.  I  quote  from  the  Congressional  Record  of  Jan 
uary  21,  1900. 

"Manilla  special,  July  12,  1899. 

"General  Bates,  in  the  capacity  of  agent  of  the 
United  States  Government,  sailed  for  Jolo  this  morning 
to  negotiate  with  the  Sultan  of  Jolo  regarding  the  fu 
ture  relations  of  the  Jolo  (or  Sulu)  Archipeligo,  includ 
ing  the  Basilians,  as  a  naval  station.  The  Sultan  as 
sumes  that  the  Jolos  reverted  to  him,  the  evacuation 
of  the  Spaniards  nullifying  hte  treaty  of  1878.  General 
Bates  will  explain  to  the  Sultan  that  the  Americans 
succeeded  the  Spaniards  in  the  treaty  assuming  its 
obligations  and  continuing  the  annuities  it  provides  for. 
He  will  also  present  to  the  Sultan  $10,000  in  Mexican 
money  as  an  evidence  of  good  will.  The  local  adminis 
tration  of  the  Jolos  will  remain  unchanged.  The  Sultan 
will  enforce  the  law,  and  will  also  be  expected  to  fly  the 
American  flag  continuously  and  co-operate  with  Am 
erica  to  maintain  order  and  suppress  piracy. 

"General  Bates  then  entered  into  the  following  agree 
ment: 

"  'Agreement  between  Brig.  Gen.  John  C. 
Bates,  representing  the  United  States,  of  the 
one  part,  and  His  Highness,  the  Sultan  of 
Sulu ;  it  being  understood  that  this  agreement 
will  be  in  full  force  only  when  confirmed  by 
the  President  of  the  United  States,  and  will 
be  subject  to  future  modifications  by  the  mu 
tual  consent  of  the  parties  in  interest.' 

"I  deem  it  proper  to  state  that  this  agreement  has 
been  confirmed  by  the  President  of  the  United  States 
in  a  letter  transmitting  the  treaty  to  the  Senate.  How- 

226 


ever,  this  is  a  treaty  apparently  with  a  quasi  sovereign 
power,  over  which  the  Senate,  according  to  our  new 
doctrine  of  imperialism,  has  no  other  authority  and  no 
control,  and  it  requires  no  ratification  by  the  Senate 
and  no  consideration  on  our  part. 

"  'Article  1.  The  sovereignty  of  the  United 
States  over  the  whole  archipelago  of  Sulu  and 
its  dependencies  is  declared  and  acknowledged. 

"  'Article  2.  The  United  States  flag  will  be 
used  in  the  archipelago  of  Sulu  and  its  depen 
dencies  on  land  and  sea. 

"  'Article  3.  The  rights  and  dignities  of  his 
highness  the  Sultan  and  his  datos  shall  be  fully 
respected;  all  their  religious  customs  shall  be 
respected,  and  no  one  shall  be  persecuted  on 
account  of  his  religion. 

"  'Article  4.  While  the  United  States  may- 
occupy  and  control  such  points  in  the  archi 
pelago  of  Sulu  as  public  interests  seem  to  de 
mand,  encroachment  will  not  be  made  upon  the 
lands  immediately  about  the  residence  of  his 
highness  the  Sultan  unless  military  necessity 
require  such  occupation  in  case  of  war  with  a 
foreign  power,  and  where  the  property  of  in 
dividuals  is  taken,  due  compensation  will  be 
made  in  each  case. 

"  'Article  10.  Any  slave  in  the  archipelago 
of  Sulu  .shall  have  the  right  to  purchase  free 
dom  by  paying  to  the  master  the  usual  market 
value. 

"  'Article  12.  At  present  Americans  or  for 
eigners  wishing  to  go  into  the  country  should 
state  their  wishes  to  the  Moro  authorities  and 
ask  for  an  escort,  but  it  is  hoped  this  will  be 
come  unnecessary  as  we  know  each  other  bet 
ter. 

"  'Article  13.  The  United  States  will  give 
full  protection  to  the  Sultan  and  his  subjects 

227 


in  case  any  foreign  nation  shall  attempt  to 
impose  upon  them. 

'  'Article  14.  The  United  States  will  not  sell 
the  island  of  Sulu  or  any  other  island  of  the 
Sulu  Archipelago  to  any  foreign  nation  with 
out  the  consent  of  the  Sultan  of  Sulu. 

'"Article  15.  The  United  States  Govern 
ment  will  pay  the  following  monthly  salaries: 
"  To  the  Sultan,  $250 ;  to  Dato  Muda,  $75 ; 
to  Datto  Attik,  $60;  to  Dato  Calbe,  $75;  to 
Dato  Joakanain,  $75;  to  Dato  Puyo,  $60;  to 
Dato  Amir  Haissin,  $60;  to  Habji  Buter,  $50; 
to  Habib  Mura,  $40;  to  Serif  Saguin,  $15. 

'  'Signed  in  triplicate,  in  English  and  Sulu, 
at  Jolo,  this  20th  day  of  August,  A.  D.,  1899 
(13th  Arakuil  Akil  1317). 

"  The  SULTAN  SULU 
Dato  RAJAH  HUDA 
Dato  ATTIK 
Dato  CALBE 
Dato  JOAKANAIN 

"'Signed:     J.  C.  BATES, 
Brigadier-General,  U.  S.  V.' 

"The  annual  aggregate  of  these  .salaries  is  $9,120. 
The  Spanish  agreement  was  for  $6,300  a  year.  This 
agreement  was  one  we  offered  to  the  Sultan,  not  one 
that  he  insisted  upon.  It  is  our  own  proposition  that 
we  are  to  maintain  slavery  in  the  Sulu  Islands. 

"Farther  than  that,  Mr.  President,  an  investiga 
tion  would  show  that,  although  this  agreement 
was  made  on  the  20th  day  of  August,  it  was  not  pos 
sible  to  secure  from  the  State  Department  a  copy  of 
the  agreement  until  after  the  election  in  Ohio. 

"I  say  this  agreement,  when  the  Associated  Press 
tried  to  get  a  copy  of  it  before  the  Senate  convened, 
was  furnished  in  Arabic,  and  an  Arabic  used  in  the 
Sulu  Islands.  Therefore  it  was  not  possible  to  have 

228 


it  translated  in  the  United  States,  and  we  only  got 
this  copy  which  I  have  read  after  Congress  convened 
and  after  the  elections  last  fall  were  over.  This  is  on 
a  par  and  in  line  with  the  whole  business  of  concealing 
from  the  American  people  the  facts  in  regard  to  our 
maiden  foreign  venture.  We  are  unable  to  procure 
the  truth  through  General  Otis.  Mr.  Collins,  of  the 
Associated  Press,  says  the  censor  told  him  he  was  to 
send  nothing  and  they  were  going  to  allow  nothing 
to  be  sent  that  would  injure  the  Administration  or 
help  Mr.  Bryan. 

"Here  is  an  agreement  by  which  we  are  to  main 
tain  not  only  slavery,  but  polygamy  in  the  Sulu  Islands. 
Here  is  an  agreement  by  which  our  flag  is  made  to  float 
over  two  crimes;  and  we  further  solemnly  agree  that 
no  nation  in  the  world  shall  be  permitted  to  interfere. 
It  is  the  chief  part  of  the  business  of  the  Sultan  of 
Sulu  to  get  into  quarrels  with  the  natives  of  the  in 
terior  in  the  island  of  Mindanao;  then  to  declare  that 
they  are  in  revolt  against  his  authority.  Upon  this 
pretext  he  takes  prisoners  and  sells  them  into  slavery, 
the  planters  of  Borneo  being  the  purchasers.  That  has 
been  his  business  heretofore  whenever  he  needed 
money.  We  now  propose  to  maintain  that  sort  of 
thing  under  the  flag  of  the  United  States,  and  we  stipu 
late,  and  the  stipulation  is  approved  by  the  President, 
that  no  foreign  nation  shall  be  permitted  to  interfere." 

MR.  SPOONER:  "Does  the  Senator  wish  to  be  un 
derstood  as  asserting  that  the  President  approved  ar 
ticle  10  of  this  agreement,  which  refers  to  slavery  in 
the  archipelago  of  Sulu?" 

MR.  PETTIGREW:    "I  do/' 

MR.  SPOONER:  "Well,  the  President  -says  in  his 
message — and  if  the  Senator  will  permit  me  I  will  read 
it— 

"  'I  have  confirmed  said  agreement,  subject 
to  the  action  of  the  Congress,  and  with  the 
reservation,  which  I  have  directed  shall  be 

229 


communicated  to  the  Sultan  of  Jolo,  that  this 
agreement  is  not  to  be  deemed  in  any  way  to 
authorize  or  give  the  consent  of  the  United 
States  to  the  existence  of  slavery  in  the  Sulu 
Archipelago.  I  communicate  these  facts  to 
the  Congress  for  its  information  and  action.' ' 

BY  MR.  PETTIGREW:  "The  President  approver 
of  an  agreement  which  provides  that  the  slave  may 
purchase  his  liberty  at  the  usual  market  price,  and 
according  to  the  first  paragraph  of  the  agreement  it 
goes  in  full  force  upon  the  approval  of  the  President 
and  cannot  after  that  be  altered  except  by  another 
agreement.  This  transaction  is  on  a  par  with  all  the 
other  inconsistencies  attached  to  this  miserable  busi 
ness.  He  then  says  that  he  wants  the  Sultan  to  un 
derstand  that  he  does  not  authorize  slavery;  though 
he  has  approved  the  agreement  which  ratifies  slavery. 
How  could  he  transmit  the  agreement  to  us  with  his 
approval  and  then  send  back  word  to  the  Sultan  that 
he  did  not  wish  to  be  understood  as  approving  slavery? 
Who  knows  whether  or  not  the  word  will  ever  get  to 
the  Sultan? 

"Almost  everything  we  receive  here  in  regard  to  this 
matter  is  on  a  par  with  the  transmittal  to  the  Asso 
ciated  Press  of  a  copy  of  the  Sulu  agreement  in  Sulu 
Arabic  to  conceal  the  infamy  until  after  the  elections 
were  over  last  fall.  It  is  on  a  par  with  the  statement 
of  the  commisisoners  who  made  this  agreement,  which 
I  shall  proceed  to  read.  Mr.  Schurman  in  an  interview 
says: 

"  'It  seems  to  me  that  were  it  not  for  the  ig 
norance  displayed  the  present  hue  and  cry 
about  polygamy  and  slavery  in  these  islands 
would  be  absolutely  criminal/ 

"If  it  were  not  for  the  ignorance  displayed,  the 
present  hue  and  cry  about  polygamy  and  slavery  would 
be  absolutely  criminal  I  suppose  the  hue  and  cry 

230 


about  slavery  before  our  civil  war  was  criminal.  Many 
people  so  asserted,  many  people  honestly  .so  believed, 
and  I  presume  that  Mr.  Schurman  honestly  believes 
that  the  hue  and  cry  about  polygamy  and  slavery  again 
existing  under  the  flag  of  the  United  States  would  be 
criminal  but  for  the  ignorance  of  the  people  who  cause 
it. 

"In  taking  over  the  Sulu  group  we  have  acquired  no 
rights  of  any  sort  there  except  those  bequeathed  us 
by  Spain. 

"And  yet  the  President,  time  and  again  during  last 
fall  in  his  speeches  everywhere  made  to  the  people, 
asserted  that  the  flag  meant  the  same  thing  every 
where,  meant  the  same  here,  in  the  Sulu  group,  and  in 
Hawaii;  that  it  meant  in  every  place  the  same,  and 
that  its  presence  conferred  liberty  and  happiness  upon 
the  people  under  it. 

"She  was  bound  by  her  agreement  with  the  Sultan 
not  to  interfere  with  the  religion  or  customs  of  the 
islands,  and  it  would  be  most  unwise  for  us  to  attempt 
this  by  force  when  it  can  be  ultimately  accomplished 
by  the  slower  method  of  civilization  and  education. 

"Mr.  President,  we  tried  the  slower  method  of  dis 
posing  of  slavery  and  polygamy  in  the  United  States, 
also  the  slower  method  of  civilization,  but  finally  we 
resorted  to  war — the  greatest  war  in  modern  times — 
and  thereby  succeeded  in  destroying  .slavery  under 
our  flag.  It  has  been  restored  by  the  act  of  a  Presi 
dent  elected  by  the  Republican  party.  How  will  it 
strike  the  veterans  of  that  war  to  annex  slavery  after 
all  these  sacrifices  and  then  propose  to  abolish  it  when 
the  slaveholders  conclude  it  is  wrong  and  give  their 
consent  ?" 

"The  Sulu  group  proper  contains  about  100,000  in 
habitants.  They  are  all  Mohammedans.  To  attempt 
to  interfere  with  the  religion  of  these  people  would 
precipitate  one  of  the  bloodiest  wars  in  which  this 
country  has  ever  been  engaged.  They  are  religious 
fanatics  of  the  most  pronounced  type,  who  care  nothing 

231 


for  death  and  believe  that  the  road  to  heaven  can  be 
attained  by  killing  Christians.  Polygamy  is  a  part 
of  their  religion,  and  slavery,  about  which  so  much 
is  being  said  just  now,  is  a  mild  type  of  feudal  homage. 
The  Sultan  believes  from  what  he  has  seen  of  Ameri 
cans  that  they  are  ready  to  be  friendly  and  deal  hon 
estly  by  him. 

"Mr.  President,  I  will  show  what  kind  of  feudal 
homage  this  .slavery  in  the  Philippines  is.  Owing  to 
the  fact  that  those  people  will  fight,  we  prefer  to 
enforce  slavery  and  polygamy,  and  we  attack  the  Chris 
tians  in  the  island  of  Luzon  and  compel  them  to  sur 
render — what?  Surrender  their  desire  for  a  govern 
ment  of  their  own.  We  prefer  to  turn  from  polygamy 
and  slavery  and  endorse  them,  put  our  flag  over  them, 
and  declare  that  nobody  shall  interfere  with  them,  and 
then  turn  our  armies  and  our  navies  to  the  destruction 
of  the  independence  and  freedom  of  a  Christian  popu 
lation,  which  we  also  purchased  from  Spain. 

I  will  read  from  the  second  edition  of  Mr.  Foreman's 
book,  which  was  published  in  1899,  and  brought  up  to 
date.  He  says: 

"  'The  Sultanate  is  hereditary  under  the 
Salic  law.  The  Sultan  is  supported  by  three 
ministers,  one  of  whom  acts  as  regent  in  his 
absence  (for  he  might  have  to  go  to  Mecca, 
if  he  had  not  previously  done  so),  the  other 
is  minister  of  war,  and  the  third  is  minister  of 
justice  and  master  of  the  ceremonies. 

"  'Slavery  exists  in  a  most  ample  sense. 
There  are  slaves  by  birth  and  others  by  con 
quest,  such  as  prisoners  of  war,  insolvent 
debtors,  and  those  seized  by  piratical  expedi 
tions  to  other  islands.  A  Creole  friend  of 
mine,  Don  A.  M.  was  one  of  these  last.  He 
had  commenced  clearing  an  estate  for  cane 
growing  on  the  Negros  coast  some  years  ago, 
when  he  was  -seized  and  carried  off  to  Sulu 

232 


Island.  In  a  few  years  he  was  ransomed  and 
returned  to  Negros,  where  he  formed  one  of 
the  finest  sugar  haciendas  and  factories  in 
the  colony.' 

"I  now  read  from  Social  History  of  the  Races  of 
Mankind,  by  Featherman: 

"  'Slavery  exists  on  Sulu  Island,  and  the 
•slaves,  who  were  formerly  brought  from  the 
Philippines,   are  not  well   treated,   for  their 
masters  exercise  the  power  of  life  and  death 
over  them,  and  sometimes  kill  them  for  tri 
fling  offenses.    The  dates  frequently  punish  a 
disobedient  or  fugitive  slave  by  drawing  their 
campilan  or  kris  and  cutting  off  his  head  at 
one  strike  without  process  of  law.' 
"And  this  is  the  mild  form  of  feudal  homage  Schur- 
man  would  have  us  believe  should  enjoy  the  protec 
tion  of  our  flag  until  we  can  persuade  the  slaveholders 
that  it  is  wrong. 

"Why  did  Schurman  make  this  statement?  The 
reason  is  plain.  He  did  it  just  before  the  elections; 
about  the  time  the  State  Department  gave  out  the 
Sulu  copy  of  the  treaty  for  the  information  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States.  I  contend  that  after  this 
statement,  made  at  the  time  it  was  made  by  Mr.  Schur 
man  with  an  evident  purpose  to  deceive,  he  has  for 
feited  all  right  to  be  believed  by  anybody  hereafter, 
and  that  his  statements  on  all  subjects  in  relation  to 
the  Philippines  are  not  worthy  of  credence. 

"I  read  also  from  St.  John's  Far  East,  volume  2, 
page  192,  as  follows : 

"  The  slaves  are  collected  from  all  parts  of 
the  archipelago,  from  Acheen  Head  in  New 
Guinea,  and  from  the  south  of  Siam  to  the 
most  northern  parts  of  the  Philippines.  It 
is  a  regular  slave  market.' 

"Then  he  describes  the  people.  Not  only  have  the 
slaveholders  the  right  of  life  and  death  over  their 

233 


slaves,  but  the  monarch  himself  has  complete  and 
full  right  to  take  the  life  of  any  of  his  -subjects  when 
ever  he  chooses.  There  is  no  restraint  upon  him." 

I  was  intimately  acquainted  with  Roosevelt  for  a 
great  many  years,  having  met  him  first  at  Bismarck, 
in  1884  and  1885. 

About  1909  I  was  the  guest  of  Robert  Hunter  at  a 
dinner  at  the  Alden  Club  in  New  York  City.  At  this 
dinner,  Arthur  Brisbane,  Morris  Hilquit,  Professor 
Giddings,  of  Columbia  University,  and  others  were 
present.  After  discussing  many  questions  with  these 
radicals  and  socialists — questions  that  covered  a 
wide  range  of  socialism,  imperialism  and  social  and 
economic  justice — Professor  Giddings  turned  to  me 
abruptly  and  asked,  "What  do  you  think  of  Roose 
velt?"  I  replied  that  I  had  known  him  intimately 
for  years  and  that  when  I  was  with  him  he  made  me 
believe  that  he  was  sincere  and  honest  in  his  expres 
sion  of  his  views  as  to  what  should  be  done  and 
what  he  wanted  to  do,  but  that  when  I  was  away 
from  his  presence  he  did  or  said  something  that  made 
me  doubt.  Thereupon  Professor  Giddings  replied 
that  he  had  known  Roosevelt  from  boyhood  and 
watched  him  from  every  position  and  that  when  he 
was  with  him  and  talked  with  him  face  to  face  he 
always  came  away  convinced  that  Roosevelt  was 
the  greatest  faker  in  the  world,  but  that  when  he 
was  not  present  with  him,  Roosevelt  did  or  said  some 
thing  that  made  him  doubt. 

We  continued  to  talk  about  Roosevelt  and  I  fin 
ally  told  the  company  that  I  had  just  been  to  Wash 
ington  at  Roosevelt's  request,  he  having  written  me 
that  he  was  very  anxious  to  see  me.  On  arriving  in 
Washington  I  went  to  the  White  House  and  called 
upon  Roosevelt,  and  as  I  came  in  he  rushed  across 
the  room,  extending  both  hands,  and  said  at  once 
that  he  wanted  me  to  secure  Democratic  votes 
enough  to  pass  the  Hepburn  Railroad  Bill  through 

234 


the  Senate.  He  said  that  Aldrich  was  opposing  it 
and  trying  to  amend  it  so  that  it  would  amount  to 
nothing. 

I  immediately  replied  that  I  was  not  in  favor  of 
the  Hepburn  Bill  in  any  form,  that  the  only  remedy 
was  the  Government  ownership  of  the  railroads — 
that  the  railroads  were  the  highways  of  the  nation, 
and  should  be  operated  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole 
people  of  the  United  States  and  not  for  private  profit. 
Roosevelt  immediately  said:  "I  have  the  bill  here  at 
the  White  House  which  you  introduced  for  the  Gov 
ernment  ownership  of  the  railroads;  also  the  argu 
ment  you  made  in  support  of  the  same."  And  he 
went  and  brought  out  both  the  argument  and  the 
bill.  Then  he  said:  "We  cannot  pass  a  bill  for  Gov 
ernment  ownership  at  the  present  time  and  I  am 
therefore  very  anxious  to  try  regulating  the  rail 
roads." 

I  replied  that  regulation  was  entirely  futile  and 
useless  for  the  reason  that,  if  the  power  to  regulate 
the  railroads  and  to  fix  the  rate  were  placed  in  the 
hands  of  any  commission,  the  railroads  would  at 
once  own  the  commission  —  that  a  railroad  man, 
J.  Lowery  Bell,  who  was  receiving  $12,000  a  year 
as  superintendent  of  a  railroad,  was  the  second  as 
sistant  Postmaster  General  at  $4,000  a  year,  in 
charge  of  the  Railway  Mail  Service  of  the  Postoffice 
Department  during  the  whole  twelve  years  that  I 
was  in  the  Senate,  and  therefore  it  was  perfectly 
idle  to  try  to  regulate  the  railroads  and  their  rates 
through  any  commission,  no  matter  who  selected  it, 
for  it  would  ultimately  be  selected  by  the  railroads 
themselves. 

I  said,  "Do  you  know  the  Hepburn  Bill  cuts  off 
broad  court  review  and  only  allows  the  courts  to 
review  as  to  the  law  but  not  as  to  the  facts?  The 
Hepburn  Bill  also  empowers  the  Interstate  Com 
merce  Commission  to  make  rates;  in  fact,  to  initiate 

235 


rates."  And  I  added,  "Do  you  want  these  two 
things?  Are  they  what  you  desire?" 

Roosevelt  jumped  up  and  said,  "Yes,  that  is  just 
what  I  want." 

"Well,"  I  said,  "if  you  will  stand  for  that  I  will 
see  what  can  be  done." 

The  next  day  I  took  two  senators  to  the  White 
House — two  Democrats — and  told  Roosevelt  that 
these  two  men  would  assist  him  in  getting  others,  and 
that  they  could  furnish  votes  enough  to  put  the  bill 
through  in  spite  of  Mr.  Aldrich.  But  I  added — 
"Roosevelt,  you  are  so  partisan  a  Republican  that  I 
feel  that  we  run  great  risk  in  dealing  with  you  at 
all,  because  you  are  liable,  after  you  see  you  can  pass 
the  bill,  to  make  a  deal  with  Aldrich  and  abandon 
your  democratic  allies  in  the  interests  of  party  har 
mony."  He  thereupon  .pounded  the  table  and  declared 
he  would  never  surrender,  but  would  stand  to  the  end. 

When  I  had  finished  this  statement,  Professor  Gid- 
dings  remarked  that  he  knew  Roosevelt  far  better 
than  I  did,  and  that  Roosevelt  would  sell  me  out 
together  with  the  democratic  senators  and  make  a 
deal  with  Aldrich,  and  pass  the  bill  in  the  form 
which  would  be  satisfactory  to  the  railroads.  That 
is  exactly  what  Roosevelt  did. 

This  episode  convinced  me  of  what  I  had  before 
suspected — that  Roosevelt  never  stood  for  anything 
that  was  against  the  settled  interests  of  those  who 
were  exploiting  the  American  people. 

After  Taft  had  been  nominated,  in  1912,  Roose 
velt  asked  me  to  come  to  his  home  at  Oyster  Bay  on 
Long  Island,  as  he  wished  to  talk  with  me  about  the 
political  situation.  Accordingly  I  went  to  Oyster  Bay 
and  spent  the  day  with  him. 

When  I  went  into  the  library  at  Oyster  Bay,  Roose 
velt  rushed  across  the  room,  put  out  both  hands  and 
said :  "Pettigrew,  you  were  right  about  Taft.  Are 
you  going  to  support  me?" 

236 


"I  said,  "Why,  Roosevelt,  I  didn't  know  you  were 
running  for  anything." 

He  said:  "I  am  going  to  run  as  an  independent 
candidate  for  President." 

I  said,  "Well,  I  don't  think  I  will  support  you; 
there  is  no  sense  in  your  running — all  you  can  ac 
complish  is  to  elect  Woodrow  Wilson,  and  that  will 
be  a  national  disaster." 

He  said:  "Oh,  well,  we  might  as  well  suffer  four 
years  under  Wilson  as  four  years  more  under  Taft." 

I  said,  "No,  there  is  a  great  difference.  Taft  is 
amiable  imbecility.  Wilson  is  wilful  and  malicious 
imbecility  and  I  prefer  Taft." 

Roosevelt  then  said :  "Pettigrew,  you  know  the  two 
old  parties  are  just  alike.  They  are  both  controlled 
by  the  same  influences,  and  I  am  going  to  organize 
a  new  party — a  new  political  party — in  this  country 
based  upon  progressive  principles.  We  won't  win 
this  year,  but  four  years  from  now  we  will  elect  the 
President,  and  you  are  going  to  support  me." 

1  said,  "Roosevelt,  if  you  mean  that  you  will  stand 
for  a  new  party — I  recognize  the  great  necessity  of 
it — the  two  old  parties  are  absolutely  dominated  by 
the  predatory  interests,  and  if  your  platform  suits 
me  I  will  certainly  support  you." 

Roosevelt  then  said,  "What  do  you  want  in  that 
platform?"  And  I  began  to  tell  him  that  I  wanted 
government  ownership  of  the  railroads;  I  wanted 
a  reformation  of  the  financial  system  by  which  money 
would  be  issued  by  the  Government  and  the  Govern 
ment  alone,  and  many  other  radical  things.  In  fact, 
Roosevelt  and  I  sat  down  that  afternoon  and  drew 
the  platform.  When  we  had  finished,  Roosevelt 
said: 

"Now  are  you  going  to  support  me?" 

And  I  said :  "If  your  convention  adopts  that  plat 
form  I  will  support  you,  and  when  the  convention 
afterward  adopted  the  platform  I  wrote  Roosevelt  I 

237 


would  give  him  my  hearty  support;  and  I  did,  and 
I  carried  South  Dakota  for  him  in  the  election. 

I  told  him  that  I  considered  the  issue  and  the  con 
trol  of  money  of  great  and  vital  importance,  and  we 
finally  agreed  on  the  plank  that  appeared  in  his 
platform,  i.e.,  that  the  issue  of  money  should  not  be 
subject  to  private  manipulation,  but  should  be  con 
trolled  absolutely  by  the  Government  in  the  interests 
of  the  people. 

We  then  talked  about  the  labor  planks  as  related 
to  men,  women  and  children. 

After  the  convention  had  adopted  a  platform  and 
nominated  Roosevelt  as  a  Progressive,  I  received  a 
letter  from  him  asking  me  if  I  intended  to  support 
him  and  if  the  platform  was  satisfactory.  I  answered 
briefly  that  I  would  support  him  because  of  his  state 
ment  to  me  that  he  would  organize  a  permanent 
party  in  the  interests  of  social  and  economic  justice, 
and  because  of  the  progressive  principles  that  he  had 
placed  in  his  platform. 

I  am  now  convinced  that  he  never  had  any  real 
intention  of  organizing  a  permanent  progressive 
party.  As  an  egoist  his  chief  interest  centered 
around  his  own  personality;  the  nomination  of  Taft 
was  so  sharp  a  blow  to  his  self-love  that  there  was 
nothing  for  him  to  do  except  to  throw  himself  into 
the  limelight  in  another  direction.  His  over-regard 
for  himself,  which  had  grown  so  rapidly  during  his 
later  years,  tended  to  make  him,  par  excellence,  the 
monumental  faker  of  the  world.  In  playing  this 
role,  he  was  simply  following  out  the  line  of  conduct 
established  during  his  early  years  in  public  life. 

When  the  battleship  MAINE  was  blown  up  in 
Havana  Harbor,  just  previous  to  the  war  with  Spain, 
Col.  Melvin  Grigsby  was  at  Fort  Pierre,  S.  D.  Fort 
Pierre  is  on  the  west  side  of  the  Missouri  River  and 
in  the  very  heart  of  the  greatest  cattle  range  in 
America.  Here  it  was  that  Catlin  met  the  Sioux 

238 


chiefs  and  thousands  of  Indians  in  1832.  In  this 
country  were  the  greatest  buffalo  pastures  in  the 
world. 

Col.  Grigsby  was  a  veteran  of  the  Civil  War,  hav 
ing  seen  four  years  of  service — a  man  of  great  cour 
age  and  superior  intelligence.  And  from  Fort  Pierre 
he  telegraphed  President  McKinley  that  the  sinking 
of  the  MAINE  meant  war,  and  that  the  best  soldiers 
that  could  be  secured  on  short  notice  for  the  war 
with  Spain  were  the  cowboys  of  the  plains. He  offered 
his  service  in  this  connection.  Shortly  afterward, 
Col.  Grigsby  came  to  Washington  and  secured  an 
amendment  to  the  bill,  which  had  already  passed  the 
House,  authorizing  the  raising  of  volunteers  for  the 
Spanish  War,  which  provided  that  3,000  men  of  spe 
cial  fitness  might  be  recruited  independently,  the 
officers  to  be  appointed  by  the  President. 

At  this  time,  Theodore  Roosevelt  was  Assistant  Sec 
retary  of  the  Navy.  Leonard  Wood  was  a  contract 
surgeon  in  the  army  of  the  United  States,  located  at 
Washington  and  detailed  to  attend  to  Mrs.  McKinley. 
He  applied  to  be  appointed  one  of  the  colonels  of 
one  of  the  Rough  Rider  regiments  of  cowboys,  and 
Theodore  Roosevelt  applied  to  be  appointed  Lieu 
tenant  Colonel  of  the  same  regiment.  These  two 
doughty  soldiers,  with  no  experience  except  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  experience  as  a  cowboy  one  season  on  the 
little  Missouri  River,  and  Wood's  experience  as  a 
contract  surgeon,  received  their  respective  appoint 
ments.  They  raised  a  regiment  of  so-called  cow 
boys  in  the  eastern  states  and  went  to  Florida. 

From  Florida  they  embarked  for  Cuba,  leaving 
their  horses  behind.  They  landed  east  of  Santiago 
and  started  through  the  jungle  for  San  Juan  Hill, 
General  Wood  being  colonel  of  the  regiment  and 
Mr.  Roosevelt  acting  as  lieutenant  colonel. 

About  ten  miles  from  San  Juan  Hill,  they  were 
ambushed  by  the  Spaniards  and  some  of  the  Rough 

239 


Riders  were  wounded  in  what  was  called  the  El 
Caney  fight.  They  would  have  been  cut  to  pieces, 
but  General ,  in  command  of  some  regi 
ments  of  Negro  troops,  rushed  in  these  colored  regu 
lars  and  rescued  Wood  and  his  doughty  lieutenant- 
colonel  from  the  hands  of  the  Spaniards. 

The  Rough  Riders— all  on  foot,  for  they  had  left 
their  horses  back  in  Florida — then  proceeded  to  a 
field  near  the  foot  of  Kettle  Hill,  which  blanketed 
San  Juan  Hill,  and  remained  there  until  General 

and  his  colored  troops  took  San  Juan  Hill 

from  the  Spaniards. 

After  San  Juan  Hill  had  been  captured,  Col.  Wood 
and  Lieutenant  Colonel  Roosevelt  charged  up  Kettle 
Hill,  where  there  was  nothing  but  an  old  kettle  which 
had  been  used  for  evaporating  sugar  cane  juice. 
There  were  no  fortifications  or  trenches  or  block 
houses,  or  Spaniards,  dead  or  alive,  on  Kettle  Hill. 
Yet  Roosevelt,  in  his  book  "History  of  the  Spanish 
War/'  says  that  he  charged  up  San  Juan  Hill  and 
found  the  trenches  full  of  dead  Spaniards  with  little 
holes  in  their  foreheads,  and  that  two  Spaniards 
jumped  up  and  ran  away,  and  that  he  missed  one  of 
them  but  killed  the  other  with  a  shot  in  the  back 
from  his  revolver. 

I  refer  to  the  records  of  the  War  Department, 
which  show  that  Roosevelt  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  taking  of  San  Juan  Hill.  I  refer  also  to  a  pam 
phlet  by  Colonel  Bacon,  of  Brooklyn,  in  which  he 
says  that  he  secured  affidavits  of  one  hundred  sol 
diers  and  officers  who  were  in  the  campaign  to  take 
Santiago,  and  that  all  of  them  testified  that  Roose 
velt  was  not  in  the  battle  of  San  Juan  Hill,  or,  in  fact, 
in  any  other  battle  except  the  ambush  at  El  Caney. 

Afterwards,  when  Roosevelt  became  President  of 
the  United  States,  he  posed  on  horseback  at  Fort 
Meyer,  and  had  his  picture  painted  by  a  famous  Ger 
man  artist,  charging  up  San  Juan  Hill. 

240 


After  the  Spanish  War  was  over,  Mr.  Roosevelt 
located  in  the  city  of  Washington,  and,  having  in 
herited  a  fortune,  the  tax  assessor  of  New  York 
placed  him  on  the  tax  list  for  a  large  sum  as  resident 
of  New  York  State.  Mr.  Roosevelt  thereupon  swore 
off  his  taxes,  swearing  that  he  was  not  a  resident 
of  the  State  of  New  York,  but  of  the  city  of  Wash 
ington,  and,  not  being  a  citizen  of  New  York,  was 
not  liable  to  taxes  under  the  laws  of  that  state. 

Shortly  after  taking  this  oath,  Boss  Platt  called 
upon  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  proposed  that  he  should  be 
a  candidate  for  Governor  of  New  York.  Roosevelt 
promptly  replied  that  he  could  not  run  for  Governor 
as  he  was  not  a  citizen  of  New  York,  and  related  the 
incident  of  his  swearing  off  his  taxes.  Platt  there 
upon  remarked :  "Is  the  hero  of  San  Juan  Hill  going 
to  show  the  white  feather?" 

Mr.  Roosevelt  answered,  in  his  dramatic  and  elo 
quent  way,  that  he  was  no  coward,  and  would  be  a 
candidate. 

After  election,  when  he  came  to  take  the  oath  of 
office  as  Governor  of  New  York,  he  had  to  swear 
that  he  was  a  citizen  of  the  State  of  New  York.  But 
sufficient  time  had  not  elapsed  for  him  to  acquire 
citizenship  since  he  had  sworn  that  he  was  not  a 
citizen  of  the  state.  The  difficulty  was  overcome  by 
Elihu  Root's  statement  that  domicile  in  Washington 
for  the  purpose  of  escaping  taxes  in  the  State  of  New 
York  was  not  a  sufficient  loss  of  citizenship  to  dis 
qualify  Roosevelt  for  governor.  Root  was  afterwards 
much  pampered  and  petted  by  Roosevelt  when  he 
became  President  of  the  United  States. 

Having  by  accident  become  President,  Roosevelt 
served  out  McKinley's  term  and  was  then  nominated 
and  elected.  At  the  end  of  four  years  more,  having 
named  Taft  as  his  successor,  Roosevelt  concluded  to 
emulate  the  exploits  of  the  Romans  and  add  Afri- 
canus  to  his  name.  Scipio  had  conquered  provinces 

241 


in  Africa  and  led  their  kings  and  princes  and  poten 
tates  in  triumph.  Roosevelt's  triumph  was  graced 
with  elephants'  feet  and  leopards'  tails,  and,  on  his 
way  back  to  his  own  country  to  enjoy  his  triumph,  he 
stopped  in  Paris  long  enough  to  address  the  great 
literary  and  scientific  society  founded  by  Voltaire, 
whose  president  was  Pasteur,  the  discoverer  of  many 
scientific  marvels.  And  to  this  body  of  students  of 
science  and  biology  and  literature  Teddy  delivered 
his  oration  of  thirty  minutes  in  length,  advising  them 
to  raise  babies! 

And  this  was  not  the  end  of  his  achievements.  He 
examined  the  map  of  South  America  and  found  a 
strip  of  country  marked  upon  all  the  geographies  as 
unknown  or  unexplored — a  little  west  of  and  south 
of  the  mouth  of  the  Madeira  River.  He  went  in  by 
way  of  Paraguay,  and  striking  this  unknown  region 
at  its  southern  extremity  passed  down  through  the 
tropical  jungle  of  this  country  to  the  mouth,  and 
announced  to  the  world  that  he  had  discovered  a 
new  river  of  great  importance — a  new  and  unknown 
river,  thus  adding  to  his  exploits  as  a  conqueror  in 
Africa  the  proud  name  of  discoverer.  But,  after  he 
had  announced  to  the  world  his  great  discovery,  it 
was  found  that  at  the  mouth  of  this  river  there  was 
a  small  Spanish  town  which  had  existed  for  two 
centuries  and  that  for  over  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
the  river  had  been  navigated  to  the  first  falls  by  the 
Spanish  gatherers  of  rubber. 

Roosevelt  was  a  dramatic  artist  first  and  a  presi 
dent  afterwards.  All  of  his  actions  were  strongly 
colored  by  his  love  for  effect.  He  posed.  That  was 
his  life.  Of  his  succesor,  Taft,  nothing  need  be 
added  to  the  characterization  —  "an  amiable  man 
weighing  250  pounds." 

Woodrow  Wilson  was  not  a  Democrat  after  1896. 
In  that  year  he  left  the  party  for  the  same  reason 
that  I  joined  it.  He  came  back  and  voted  for  Parker 

242 


in  1904,  and  for  the  same  reason  that  led  me  not  to 
vote  for  Parker.  Wilson  did  not  support  Bryan  in 
1908.  At  no  time  was  he  an  advocate  of  the  prin 
ciples  of  progressive  democracy. 

I  first  met  Woodrow  Wilson  the  year  before  he 
was  nominated.  It  was  in  August,  1911,  that  I  re 
ceived  a  letter  from  him  saying  that  he  would  like  to 
see  me.  He  was  residing  at  the  Governor's  summer 
home  on  the  Atlantic  coast  of  New  Jersey,  about 
eighty  miles  from  New  York.  A  friend  of  mine — I 
think  it  was  ex-Senator  Towne,  had  been  down  to 
see  him  and  had  told  Wilson  that  I  was  in  New  York. 
Wilson  thereupon  wrote  me  that  he  was  very  anxious 
to  meet  me,  and  that,  if  I  could  not  come  down  to  his 
home,  he  would  come  to  New  York.  So  I  went  down 
to  see  him. 

I  went  early  and  remained  all  day,  and  we  talked 
on  very  many  subjects.  He  told  me  that  he  was  an 
active  candidate  for  the  Democratic  nomination  for 
President  of  the  United  States  and,  thereupon,  I  be 
gan  discussing  {public  questions  with  him,  for  I  was 
prejudiced  against  him  because  of  his  attitude  in 
the  Bryan  campaigns. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  of  my  visit,  Wilson  asked  me 
if  I  would  support  him  for  the  Democratic  nomina 
tion  and  take  charge  of  his  campaign  in  the  West.  I 
said  that  I  did  not  know;  that  I  had  come  down 
there  prejudiced  against  him;  but  that  he  had  said 
things  during  the  day  that  interested  me  very  much, 
and  that  if  he  wrould  send  me  all  of  his  recent 
speeches  and  every  one  of  his  veto  messages,  so  I  could 
study  his  attitude  of  mind  upon  public  questions, 
in  about  a  month  I  could  tell  him  whether  I  could 
support  him  or  not. 

In  our  conversation  I  had  discovered  that  Wilson 
knew  nothing  about  the  practical  working  of  the  Gov 
ernment.  He  had  boasted  that  he  was  educated  and 
trained  as  a  lawyer  and  had  practiced  in  his  native 

243 


state,  Alabama,  and  this  did  not  leave  a  good  impres 
sion  upon  my  mind,  because  any  man  well  learned  in 
the  law  has  come  honestly  to  believe  that  the  rights  of 
property  and  not  human  rights  are  sacred  and  is,  there 
fore,  unfitted  to  serve  the  interests  of  the  people.  But 
Wilson  had  declared  for  the  public  ownership  of  public 
resources — that  is,  iron  and  oil,  and  had  suggested  the 
single  tax  as  a  method  of  taking  the  raw  material  from 
the  trusts  and  combinations,  such  as  the  iron,  oil,  etc. 

I  left  the  Governor's  house  after  dinner,  and  as  I 
reached  the  door  Tumulty — he  was  then  the  Governor's 
secretary — was  at  the  door  with  an  automobile  and 
said  that  the  Governor  wished  him  to  talk  with  me  and 
that,  if  I  would  permit  him,  he  would  take  me  back  to 
New  York.  I  therefore  got  into  the  automobile,  and 
he  took  me  back  to  Newark.  We  discussed  the  same 
questions  I  discussed  with  the  Governor,  and  he  said 
that  the  Governor  wanted  my  support,  and  wished  me 
to  take  charge  of  his  campaign  in  the  West. 

About  the  time  the  thirty  days  had  expired,  I  re 
ceived  a  letter  from  Tumulty  saying  that  the  Governor 
was  anxious  to  know  what  my  decision  was,  and  I 
promptly  replied  that  I  had  read  all  of  the  Governor's 
recent  speeches  and  his  veto  messages,  and  most  of  his 
works,  and  after  carefully  considering  the  same  I  was 
of  the  opinion  that  he  was  the  worst  Tory  in  the  United 
States  and  that  he  used  camouflage  to  conceal  his  set 
tled  opinion,  and  that  I  would  not  support  him  for  the 
office  of  President  even  if  no  one  else  was  a  candidate. 

I  had  many  reasons  for  taking  this  stand.  For  ex 
ample,  in  a  speech  which  was  carefully  prepared  and 
delivered  before  the  Society  of  Virginians  in  New  York 
City  in  1904,  he  had  made  the  following  statement: 

"The  real  opportunity  of  the  South  is  of  another 
sort.  It  had  now  a  unique  opportunity  to  perform  a 
great  national  service.  As  the  only  remaining  part  of 
the  Democratic  party  that  can  command  a  majority  of 
its  votes  in  its  constituency,  let  the  South  demand  a 

244 


rehabilitation  of  the  Democratic  party  on  the  only  lines 
that  restore  it  to  dignity  and  power. 

"Since  1896  the  Democratic  party  had  permitted  its 
name  to  be  used  by  men  who  ought  never  to  have  been 
admitted  to  its  councils — men  who  held  principles  and 
professed  purposes  which  it  had  always  hitherto  repu 
diated. 

"There  is  no  longer  any  Democratic  party  either  in 
the  South  or  in  any  northern  state  which  the  discred 
ited  radicals  can  use.  The  great  body  of  one-time  Dem 
ocrats  that  musters  strong  enough  to  win  elections  had 
revolted  and  will  act  with  no  organization  that  harbors 
the  radicals — as  the  radicals  did  not  in  fact  act  with 
the  organization  they  themselves  had  discredited  in 
the  recent  campaign  when  the  whole  country  felt  that 
the  Democratic  party  was  still  without  definite  char 
acter  and  makeup. 

"The  country,  as  it  moves  forward  in  its  material 
progress,  needs  and  will  tolerate  no  party  of  discontent 
or  radical  experiment,  but  it  does  need  a  party  of  con 
servative  reform,  acting  in  the  spirit  of  the  law  and 
ancient  institutions." 

I  wish  to  call  especial  attention  to  the  fact  that  Wil 
son  wished  to  throw  the  Populists  and  Silver  Republi 
cans  and  radicals  out  of  the  party;  and  to  this  para 
graph  : 

"The  country,  as  it  moves  forward  to  its  progress, 
needs  and  will  tolerate  no  party  of  discontent  or  radical 
experiment,  but  it  does  need  a  party  of  conservative 
reform,  acting  in  the  spirit  of  the  law  and  ancient  insti 
tutions." 

This  is  Woodrow  Wilson's  whole  political  creed. 

His  position  with  regard  to  labor  is  well  expressed  in 
his  baccalaureate  address  of  June  13,  1909 : 

"You  know  what  the  usual  standard  of  the  employe 
is  in  our  day.  It  is  to  give  as  little  as  he  may  for  his 
wages.  In  some  trades  and  handicrafts  no  one  is  suf 
fered  to  do  more  than  the  least  skilful  of  his  fellows  can 
do  within  the  hours  allotted  to  a  day's  labor.  It  is  so 

245 


unprofitable  that  in  some  trades  it  will  presently  not  be 
worth  while  to  attempt  at  all.  He  had  better  stop  alto 
gether  than  operate  at  an  invariable  loss.  The  labor  of 
America  is  rapidly  becoming  unprofitable  under  its 
present  regulation  by  those  who  have  determined  to 
reduce  it  to  a  minimum.  Our  economic  supremacy  may 
be  lost  because  the  country  grows  more  and  more  full 
of  unprofitable  servants/* 

And  he  was  reported  in  the  New  York  "World"  as 
saying : 

"We  speak  too  exclusively  of  the  capitalist  class. 
There  is  another  as  formidable  an  enemy  to  equality 
and  freedom  of  opportunity  as  it  is,  and  that  is  the 
class  formed  by  the  labor  organization  and  leaders  of 
the  country,  the  class  representing  only  a  small  minor 
ity  of  the  laboring  men  of  the  country,  quite  as  monop 
olistic  in  spirit  as  the  capitalist,  and  quite  as  apt  to 
corrupt  and  ruin  our  industries  by  their  monopoly." 

One  of  the  veto  messages  which  he  sent  me  revealed 
the  true  Wilson  point  of  view.  He  wrote  a  long  mes 
sage  in  vetoing  the  bill  to  eliminate  grade  crossings  on 
the  railroads  of  New  Jersey.  The  bill  by  the  New  Jer 
sey  legislature  had  provided  that  every  railroad  in  the 
state  should  eliminate  one  grade  crossing  for  each 
thirty  miles  of  track  each  year  until  they  were  all 
eliminated.  Wilson  vetoed  this  bill  on  the  ground  that 
it  would  be  a  hardship  for  the  railroads  to  comply  with 
the  provisions.  In  the  state  of  New  Jersey  at  that  time 
the  railroads  ran  through  the  main  streets  of  the  prin 
cipal  towns — right  on  the  surface — and  large  numbers 
of  people  were  killed  and  injured  at  grade  crossings. 
The  bill  was  a  mild  and  "evolutionary"  method  of  elim 
inating  the  crossings — it  permitted  the  killings  to  con 
tinue  for  many  years  before  the  last  grade  of  crossing 
was  eliminated.  Even  that  mild  provision  proved  to  be 
too  strong  for  Wilson  who,  true  to  his  lawyer  training, 
and  his  attitude  of  mind  where  the  question  of  prop 
erty  rights  was  involved,  vetoed  the  bill  because  it  in 
volved  a  hardship  on  the  shareholders. 

246 


These  and  many  other  facts  which  I  had  discovered 
in  my  study  of  his  writings  and  his  speeches  led  me  to 
write,  early  in  the  campaign  of  1912 : 

"If  Mr.  Wilson  becomes  President  he  will  oppose  any 
legislation  that  interferes  with  big  property  or  in  any 
way  curtails  its  profits.  He  has  behind  him  an  ances 
try  of  slave-holders  and  he  has  no  sympathy  with 
labor.  He  thinks  the  Chinese  are  much  better  than  the 
European  immigrants  that  come  crowding  in  from 
Europe. 

"He  is  bitterly  and  sneeringly  opposed  to  every  man 
who  toils  and  to  every  progressive  principle;  he  knows 
little  or  nothing  about  the  purposes  of  socialism,  does 
not  comprehend  the  great  revolution  going  on  in  the 
minds  of  men  which  must  shake  to  the  very  foundation 
our  social  and  economic  structure.  His  effort  will  be 
to  check,  to  turn  aside  and  to  neutralize  this  movement, 
and  he  will  do  it  all  in  the  interests  of  the  capitalistic 
classes. 

"He  will  undertake  some  reforms.  He  will  rail  about 
the  bosses;  he  will  talk  about  purity,  but  he  is  abso 
lutely  owned  by  the  great  moneyed  interests  of  the 
country  who  paid  the  expenses  of  his  campaign  for  the 
nomination  and  will  now  furnish  the  funds  for  the  elec 
tion.  No  progressive  Democrat  .should  vote  for  him 
under  any  circumstances." 

Wilson  was  nominated  by  the  usual  influences  that 
control  a  Democratic  convention.  He  had  almost  a 
solid  South  at  his  back.  The  South  is  behind  the  world 
in  ordinary  civilization,  in  social  and  economic  thought. 
This  mass  of  ignorance  and  barbarism  joined  with  the 
corrupt  exploiting  bosses  of  the  North  and  brought 
about  Woodrow  Wilson's  nomination.  Murphy,  the  ex 
ploiter  of  vice  in  New  York;  Sullivan,  the  exploiter  of 
the  people  of  Chicago,  through  the  gas  franchise; 
Ryan,  the  exploiter  of  the  .street  railway  franchise  of 
New  York,  and  Taggart,  who  for  years  ran  a  gambling 
house  at  French  Lick,  Indiana,  and  Bryan,  of  Ne- 

247 


braska,  were  all  actively  at  work  to  bring  about  Wood- 
row  Wilson's  nomination. 

Wilson,  as  President,  more  than  fulfilled  the  promise 
of  Wilson  as  Governor.  His  first  public  surrender  to 
the  interests  came  in  the  passage  of  the  Federal  Re 
serve  Act.  His  real  abdication  accompanied  his  decla 
ration  of  war  with  Germany. 

On  the  26th  of  February,  1917,  President  Wilson,  in 
an  address  to  Congress,  said : 

"I  am  not  now  proposing  or  contemplating  war,  or 
any  steps  that  may  lead  to  it." 

The  President  made  this  declaration  eleven  days 
after  the  Advisory  Council  of  Big  Business,  appointed 
by  him,  had  in  its  secret  sessions,  as  now  disclosed  by 
an  examination  of  the  records  of  the  meetings,  dis 
cussed  the  exclusion  of  labor  from  military  service, 
and  discussed  the  draft  law  months  before  it  had  been 
intimated  to  Congress  or  the  country  that  we  were  to 
raise  an  army  by  draft  to  fight  a  foreign  war. 

William  J.  Graham,  of  the  Select  Committee  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  at  Washington  on  Expendi 
tures  in  the  War  Department,  examined  the  minutes  of 
the  meetings  of  the  Council  of  Defense.  He  made 
copious  extracts  from  these  minutes.  Based  upon  that 
investigation,  Chairman  Graham  reported  to  the  full 
committee  as  follows : 

"An  examination  of  these  minutes  discloses  the  fact 
that  a  commission  of  seven  men  chosen  by  the  Presi 
dent  seems  to  have  devised  the  entire  system  of  pur 
chasing  war  supplies,  planned  a  press  censorship,  de 
signed  a  system  of  food  control,  and  selected  Herbert 
Hoover  as  its  director,  determined  on  a  daylight  saving 
scheme  and,  in  a  word,  designed  practically  every  war 
measure  which  Congress  subsequently  enacted — and 
did  all  this,  behind  closed  doors,  wreeks  and  even 
months  before  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  de 
clared  war  against  Germany." 

For  months  before  the  United  States  declared  war, 
Wilson  was  planning  war  with  a  secret  committee  of 

248 


New  York  representatives  of  Big  Business  that  he, 
Wilson,  had  appointed  for  that  purpose. 

W.  P.  G.  Harding,  president  of  the  Federal  Reserve 
Board,  gives  the  reason  why  the  United  States  went  to 
war  in  a  statement  published  on  March  22,  1917: 

"As  banker  and  creditor,  the  United  States  would 
have  a  place  at  the  peace  conference  table,  and  be  in  a 
much  better  position  to  resist  any  proposed  repudiation 
of  debts,  for  it  might  as  well  be  remembered  that  we 
will  be  forced  to  take  up  the  cudgels  for  any  of  our 
citizens  owning  bonds  that  might  be  repudiated." 

Harding,  as  a  representative  of  the  New  York  bank 
ers,  knew  what  the  secret  committee  was  doing  with 
the  President  at  its  head.  He  could,  with  perfect  con 
fidence  say,  weeks  before  the  United  States  went  into 
the  war,  "It  might  as  well  be  remembered  that  we  will 
be  forced  to  take  up  the  cudgels  for  any  of  our  citizens 
owning  bonds  that  might  be  repudiated." 

Wilson  went  to  Paris  as  the  representative  of  the 
New  York  banks.  That  he  was  their  representative 
and  consulted  with  them  all  through  the  conference  is 
proven  by  the  fact  that  Thomas  W.  Lamont(  of  J.  P. 
Morgan  &  Co.)  was  chief  financial  adviser  in  Paris,  and 
that  the  New  York  banks  had  a  copy  of  the  treaty 
weeks  before  the  United  States  Senate  received  its 
copy. 

It  is  not  an  inspiring  record — this  story  of  ten  presi 
dents — all  of  them  actively  or  passively  serving  the 
interests  that  have  been  plundering  the  American  peo 
ple.  Very  few  Americans  now  living  have  known  ten 
presidents.  Very  few  have  had  my  opportunity  for 
observation.  If  they  had,  I  think  they  would  be  com 
pelled  to  agree  with  me  that  the  control  of  the  Ameri 
can  plutocracy  is  exercised  as  directly  and  as  effectively 
over  and  through  the  Presidents  of  the  United  States 
as  over  any  other  department  of  American  Govern 
ment. 


249 


XVI.     POLITICAL  PARTIES 

In  these  descriptions  of  the  relation  between  busi 
ness  and  Government  in  the  United  States,  I  have  not 
tried  to  draw  any  sharp  distinctions  between  the  Re 
publican  and  the  Democratic  parties.  Indeed,  such  an 
effort  would  be  quite  futile,  since  no  real  distinction 
between  them  exists.  Historically,  the  two  parties  rep 
resent  varying  points  of  view  as  to  the  best  method  of 
robbing  the  workers.  The  Democrats  favored  slavery 
as  a  method.  The  Republicans  preferred  the  wage  sys 
tem.  But  those  differences  were  ironed  out  during  the 
Civil  War.  During  more  than  half  a  century  both  par 
ties  have  accepted  the  system  of  wage  labor  as  the 
most  practical  and  remunerative  system  of  exploita 
tion.  Today  Republicans  and  Democrats  are  alike  the 
spokesmen  of  big  business.  This  assertion  I  can  make 
without  the  .slightest  fear  of  contradiction,  as  I  have 
known  the  leaders  of  both  parties  for  fifty  years  and 
have  worked  in  the  inner  circles  of  both  party  ma 
chines. 

I  was  elected  to  the  United  States  Senate  as  a  Repub 
lican  when  the  state  of  South  Dakota  was  admitted  to 
the  Union.  I  was  re-elected  in  1894,  also  as  a  Repub 
lican.  I  listened  to  the  debates  in  1890  on  the  Anti- 
Trust  Law  which  was  presented  by  Senator  Sherman,  of 
Ohio.  The  trusts  were  at  that  time  beginning  to  show 
great  strength  and  both  parties  had  declared  against 
them  in  their  platforms.  The  Sherman  law  was  a  Re 
publican  measure,  but  I  observed  to  my  great  surprise 
that  the  leaders  of  the  Republican  party  were  very 
careful  not  to  include  anything  in  the  bill  that  would 
interfere  with  big  business.  Indeed,  the  anti-trust 
legislation  was  so  framed  as  to  encourage  rather  than 
discourage  combinations  in  restraint  of  trade;  I  also 
observed  that  those  amendments  which  were  offered 
to  the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law  in  order  to  make  it 
effective  by  preventing  combinations  in  restraint  of 
trade,  were  promptly  defeated  by  a  solid  Republican 

250 


vote.  This  opened  my  eyes,  and  I  began  to  wonder  if 
I  was  really  a  Republican.  Out  on  the  prairies  of  Da 
kota  there  was  a  strong  protest  against  the  exploita 
tion  of  the  people  by  eastern  bankers  and  railroad  oper 
ators,  and  I  had  never  for  one  moment  supposed  that 
the  Republican  party  which  always  claimed  to  be  the 
opponent  of  slavery  and  the  champion  of  freedom  was 
presenting  a  united  front  to  any  measures  looking  to 
a  diminution  of  this  exploitation. 

In  1896  I  was  elected  as  a  delegate  to  the  Republican 
National  Convention  which  assembled  at  St.  Louis  for 
the  purpose  of  adopting  a  platform  and  of  nominating 
a  presidential  candidate.  After  the  St.  Louis  platform 
had  been  adopted,  twenty-two  of  the  delegates,  I  among 
the  number,  left  the  convention  and  the  Republican 
party.  Our  reasons  for  leaving  were,  first,  that  the 
party,  in  its  platform,  declared  for  a  very  high  pro 
tective  tariff  and  made  no  pronouncement  against 
trusts  and  combinations  in  restraint  of  trade,  but  left 
out  the  plank  on  that  subject  which  it  had  included  in 
every  National  convention  for  at  least  eight  years  pre 
viously.  The  tariff  wall  for  which  the  platform  pro 
vided  was  so  high  as  to  make  the  trusts  absolutely  se 
cure  against  foreign  competition,  which  was  the  only 
competition  they  had  to  fear.  The  convention  also 
declared  for  the  gold  standard  and  at  every  opportu 
nity  announced  that  it  was  in  favor  of  the  great  indus 
trial  combinations,  whose  attorneys  not  only  dominated 
the  convention,  but  made  up  two-thirds  of  both  Houses 
of  Congress.  In  other  words,  the  grand  old  party  that 
had  come  into  existence  as  a  protest  against  human 
slavery  had,  after  forty  years,  decided  to  abandon  its 
great  record  as  the  champion  of  black  slaves  and  be 
come  the  champion  of  the  trusts  and  industrial  and 
transportation  combinations  which  were  enslaving 
men.  Seeing  this  change  as  clearly  as  I  did,  there  was 
only  one  course  for  me  to  pursue — I  left  the  party. 
Still  I  was  a  Republican  at  heart.  I  never  voted  but 
for  one  Democrat. 

251 


After  the  St.  Louis  Convention  I  attended  the  Demo 
cratic  Convention  at  Chicago,  and  was  on  the  platform 
when  Bryan  made  the  great  speech  which  resulted  in 
his  nomination.  He  was  endorsed  by  the  so-called  Sil 
ver  Republican  Convention,  which  was  composed  of 
those  who  bolted  the  St.  Louis  Convention  of  the  Re 
publican  party  and  their  adherents.  In  the  campaign 
of  1896  I  supported  Bryan  and  made  a  great  many 
speeches  advocating  his  election.  Partly  as  a  result 
of  my  activity  he  carried  the  State  of  South  Dakota. 
He  was  beaten  throughout  the  nation  by  the  industrial 
combinations  which  had  backed  the  nomination  of 
McKinley  and  had  adopted  the  St.  Louis  platform. 
These  interests  put  up  many  millions  to  purchase  and 
corrupt  the  voters  of  the  country  and  to  defeat  Bryan, 
so  that  they  could  go  along  with  their  work  of  concen 
trating  in  the  hands  of  a  few  the  result  of  the  toil  of 
the  American  people. 

Again  in  1900  I  supported  Bryan,  who  was  running 
on  a  platform  which  declared  against  trusts  and  com 
binations  in  restraint  of  trade,  against  the  acquisition 
of  colonies  to  be  exploited  in  the  interests  of  trade; 
against  an  enormous  army  and  navy — in  fact,  which 
declared  against  everything  that  the  Republican  party 
in  the  campaign  of  1900  stood  for. 

After  the  campaign  of  1896  a  debate  took  place  in 
the  Senate  with  regard  to  free  homes  on  the  public 
domain.  In  this  debate  I  was  contending  that  the  Re 
publican  party  boasted  during  the  campaign  of  1896 
that  it  was  the  author  of  the  Homestead  Law ;  and  that 
in  the  convention  at  St.  Louis  the  party  had  declared  in 
favor  of  the  Homestead  Law.  As  an  advocate  of  the 
restoration  of  the  Homestead  Law,  I  told  the  Republi 
cans  that  they  had  put  the  free  homestead  plank  in 
their  platform  at  St.  Louis  and  now  they  were  refusing 
to  live  up  to  it.  By  quoting  the  plank  in  the  Republican 
platform  and  comparing  it  with  the  bill  that  the  Repub 
licans  were  trying  to  enact,  I  .showed  conclusively  that 
they  had  abandoned  it.  During  this  debate,  the  whole 

252 


question  of  party  relations  and  affiliations  came  to  the 
surface,  and  above  all,  the  spokesmen  of  business,  who 
were  leading  the  fight  against  the  bill  in  the  Senate, 
said  plainly  and  emphatically  that  they  were  not  there 
to  do  the  will  of  the  people  or  to  represent  them,  but 
that  they  were  rather  serving  their  real  masters  who 
paid  the  party  bills. 

I  quote  the  Congressional  Record : 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "That  is  the  measure  which  the 
St.  Louis  Convention  specifically  and  in  terms  endorsed 
and  said  they  were  in  favor  of.  The  Senator  from  Con 
necticut  (Mr.  Platt)  says  to  me  they  did  not  do  any 
such  thing.  Let  us  see  whether  or  not  they  did.  This 
bill  was  reported  to  the  Senate  on  the  16th  of  May, 
1896,  and  on  the  18th  of  June,  1896,  the  St.  Louis  plat 
form  was  adopted.  Now,  let  us  see  what  the  platform 
says: 

"  'We  believe  in  an  immediate  return  to  the 
free  homestead  policy  of  the  Republican  party 
and  urge  the  passage  by  Congress  of  a  satis 
factory  free-homestead  measure,  such  as  has 
already  passed  the  House  and  is  now  pending 
in  the  Senate/ ' 

Mr.  PLATT,  of  Connecticut:  "Did  they  endorse  the 
bill  which  passed  the  House?'* 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "'And  is  now  pending  in  the 
Senate/  What  bill  was  pending  in  the  Senate?  The 
bill  reported  by  the  Committee  on  Indian  Affairs,  the 
bill  I  have  read  here  in  terms  and  words." 

Mr.  PLATT:  "What  did  they  endorse?  Did  they 
endorse  the  bill  which  passed  the  House  or  the  bill  that 
was  pending  in  the  Senate?" 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "Both;  the  bill  'such  as  has  al 
ready  passed  the  House  and  is  now  pending  in  the  Sen 
ate.'  " 

Mr.  PLATT:  "Does  the  Senator  think  they  knew 
what  was  pending  in  the  Senate  ?" 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "I  think  they  did." 

253 


Mr.  PLATT:  "Or  that  this  bill  was  any  different 
from  the  bill  pending  in  the  Senate?" 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "They  knew  all  about  it.  There 
is  no  question  about  it.  Here  is  the  difference  between 
the  two  bills.  The  House  bill  provided  for  free  home 
steaders  in  Oklahoma,  every  bit  of  which  had  been 
bought  from  Indians,  and  the  Senate  bill  provided  that 
the  same  provisions  should  extend  to  the  other  states 
of  the  West.  Now,  the  Republicans  went  into  the  cam 
paign  in  South  Dakota  and  on  every  stump  they  told 
these  people  that  they  should  have  free  homes  if  the 
Republican  party  won  and  that  they  could  not  get  them 
if  they  did  not,  and  you  pointed  to  the  record  of  the 
Republican  party  as  being  the  party  in  favor  of  free 
homesteads,  and  you  showed  them  that  the  Democratic 
party  had  voted  against  it  'way  back  in  1860.  You 
gained  thousands  of  votes  by  that  pretense  and  by  that 
plank  in  your  platform,  and  now  you  go  back  on  it. 

"It  is  not  the  only  plank  you  have  gone  back  on.  You 
have  gone  back  on  your  whole  record  as  a  party.  You 
have  left  the  side  of  the  people  of  this  country.  You 
have  abandoned  the  principles  that  made  your  party 
great  and  respectable  and  have  become  the  champions 
of  everything  that  is  corrupt  and  bad  in  American 
politics. 

"What  is  more,  we  passed  this  bill  as  a  separate 
measure  at  the  last  session  of  Congress  and  it  went  to 
the  House  of  Representatives  exactly  in  words  and 
terms  as  in  this  bill,  being  the  same  measure.  Has  the 
House  done  a  thing  with  it  ?  It  is  referred  to  the  Calen 
dar — the  graveyard  of  the  House.  They  will  not  even 
amend  it  and  pass  the  provision  in  regard  to  Oklahoma ; 
and  one  of  the  prominent  members  of  the  House  stood 
up  the  other  day  and  stated  that  it  was  made  for  the 
purpose  of  getting  votes.  One  of  the  most  prominent 
members  of  the  House  said  that  the  plank  was  put  in 
the  platform,  but  the  election  was  over.  I  wish  I  had 
his  speech  here.  I  should  like  to  put  it  in  the  RECORD 
along  with  my  statement  in  regard  to  it. 

254 


Mr.  GALLINGER :  "If  my  friend,  the  Senator  from 
South  Dakota,  will  permit  me,  we  ought  to  be  some 
what  exact  in  these  historical  matters.  Do  I  under 
stand  that  that  plank  was  in  the  platform  of  the  Re 
publican  party  in  1896  ?" 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "YES." 

Mr.  GALLINGER :  "And  the  campaign  was  waged  in 
South  Dakota  in  behalf  of  that  plank  by  the  Republican 
party  f' 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "YES." 

Mr.  GALLINGER :  "And  the  Senator  who  is  speak 
ing  fought  the  Republican  party  in  that  campaign." 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "I  did." 

Mr.  GALLINGER:  "The  Republican  party  had  not 
gone  back  on  that  plank  at  that  time.  How  does  it 
happen  that  the  Senator  was  with  the  opposition  in  that 
campaign?" 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "Oh,  Mr.  President,  that  is  a  long 
story,  but  I  am  willing  to  answer  it.  I  left  the  Repub 
lican  party  at  the  St.  Louis  Convention,  and  I  am  proud 
of  it.  There  has  never  been  a  day  from  that  time  to 
this  that  I  have  not  been  glad  of  it.  I  stated  in  that 
campaign  that  if  McKinley  was  elected  I  never  could 
return  to  the  party,  because  the  forces  which  would 
control  his  administration  would  make  it  impossible, 
but  there  was  a  chance  to  return  to  the  party  if  he  was 
defeated.  Repeatedly  on  the  stump  I  made  that  state 
ment.  I  left  the  St.  Louis  Convention,  first  because 
it  declared  for  the  gold  standard,  which  will  ruin  every 
producer  in  this  country  and  every  other  country  that 
adopts  and  adheres  to  it.  I  left  the  Republican  party 
because  the  trusts  had  captured  your  party  and  had 
complete  control  of  your  convention,  and  you  left  out 
the  plank  against  trusts,  which  you  had  heretofore 
adopted,  because  the  trusts,  owning  you  and  your 
party  and  in  possession  of  your  convention,  did  not 
want  to  abuse  each  other.  Reason  enough,  reason  suf 
ficient  to  justify  my  course  before  the  people  I  repre- 

255 


sent,  and  enough,  in  my  opinion,  to  consign  the  repub 
lican  party  to  eternal  oblivion. 

"What  has  been  your  course  since?  It  is  knov/n 
throughout  this  country  that  vast  sums  of  money  are 
collected  and  that  you  are  in  alliance  with  the  ac 
cumulated  and  concentrated  wealth  of  this  country, 
and  that  you  rely  upon  them  not  only  to  carry  your 
campaigns  and  furnish  money  to  corrupt  the  elec 
tions,  but  to  elect  your  senators;  and  after  you  have 
done  it,  after  you  have  elected  by  corrupt  means  a 
man  to  this  body,  the  great  convention  of  the  state 
where  it  occurs  passes  resolutions  congratulating 
themselves  upon  the  infamy  and  declaring  that  they 
are  glad  of  it." 

Mr.  GALLINGER :  "Will  the  Senator  permit  me 
again?  He  seems  to  be  somewhat  specific  nowr,  and 
he  says  that  a  man  has  been  corruptly  elected  to 
this  body  and  that  the  party  has  not  only  not  con 
demned  it,  but  applauded.  I  wish  to  ask  the  Senator 
if  there  is  any  proof  that  any  man  occupying  a  seat 
on  this  floor  as  a  republican  was  corruptly  elected?" 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:  "Oh,  yes;  and  the  proof  is 
with  the  committee  on  elections.  The  proof  is  be 
fore  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  they  all 
know  it,  and  it  is  conclusive  and  the  Senator  referred 
to  is  Mark  Hanna,  of  Ohio." 

Mr.  GALLINGER:  "That  might  be  said  of  an 
accusation  against  somebody  whose  case  was  before 
a  grand  jury  and  where  the  grand  jury  had  not  re 
ported.  I  do  not  understand  that  the  committee  on 
elections  has  made  a  report  to  this  body  giving  it  as 
their  deliberate  conviction,  after  proper  inquiry  and 
investigation,  that  any  accusation  against  a  republi 
can  occupying  a  seat  here  has  been  proved ;  and  until 
that  is  done  I  think  the  Senator  ought  to  be  a  little 
more  careful  about  his  statements  on  that  point,  with 
all  due  deference  to  his  rights  as  a  Senator." 

Mr.  PETTIGREW:     "I  am  willing  that  the  state- 

256 


ment  I  have  made  shall  go  to  the  country.  The  proof 
was  sufficient  to  satisfy  the  Senate  of  Ohio,  and  they 
sent  the  case  here  weeks  ago.  An  innocent  man 
would  demand  that  our  committee  act  before  we 
adjourn.  Why  does  the  case  sleep  in  the  Senate 
Committee  ?" 

That  was  my  statement  to  the  Senate  twenty-five 
years  ago,  and  during  those  years,  every  contact  that 
I  have  had  with  the  Republican  party  organization 
has  strengthened  my  conviction  that  I  understated 
the  case  at  that  time.  It  did  not  need  the  revelations 
of  the  1920  campaign  to  convince  the  American  peo 
ple  of  these  facts.  Those  revelations  simply  em 
phasized  knowledge  that  was  already  common. 

But  do  not  let  it  be  supposed  for  an  instant  that 
the  Democratic  party  has  been  less  eager  to  play 
handy-man  to  big  business.  It  has  been  the  oppor 
tunity  and  not  the  \vill  that  was  lacking.  And  even 
at  that,  it  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge  that  the 
Wilson  Campaign  millions  in  1912  and  again  in  1916 
were  greater  than  the  funds  at  the  disposal  of  the 
Republicans,  and  the  bulk  of  them  did  not  come  from 
either  workingmen  or  farmers.  On  the  contrary,  the 
Democrats,  like  the  republicans  got  their  funds  from 
the  only  source  that  yields  them  in  large  amounts — 
the  exploiters  of  the  American  people. 

Bryan  was  the  last  of  the  Democratic  leaders  to 
make  a  stand  against  the  vested  interests  and  while 
his  intentions  were  of  the  best,  his  knowledge  of 
economics  was  woefully  limited.  Furthermore,  he 
was  far  from  being  the  master  of  Democratic  party 
policy. 

The  Democratic  Convention  at  Denver  (1908), 
nominated  Bryan  for  the  third  time.  I  was  a  dele 
gate  from  South  Dakota  to  that  convention  and  was 
chairman  of  the  sub-committee  on  the  tariff  and 
chairman  of  the  Full  Committee  on  Insular  Affairs. 
In  connection  with  this  second  committee,  I  brought 

257 


in  a  plan  declaring  in  favor  of  the  independence  of 
the  people  of  the  Philippines  and  against  the  policy 
of  acquiring  colonies  peopled  by  another  race  for 
the  purposes  of  commercial  exploitation.  I  brought 
into  the  full  committee,  composed  of  over  fifty  mem 
bers,  a  tariff  plank  which  resulted  in  a  very  active 
debate.  The  wheel  horses  of  democracy  were  all 
for  a  high  protective  tariff  and  I  had  introduced  a 
plank  which  was  not  sufficiently  protective  to  satisfy 
their  purposes.  That  debate  satisfied  me  that  the 
difference  between  the  two  old  political  parties  was 
not  one  of  principle.  As  a  result  of  it,  I  saw  quite 
clearly  that  they  both  were  owned  by  the  exploiting 
interests  and  that  the  contest  between  the  two  was 
over  which  one  should  hold  the  offices,  dispense  the 
patronage,  and  collect  untold  millions  for  campaign 
purposes.  From  that  time  until  now  the  two  have 
been  as  like  as  two  peas  in  a  pod.  There  has  never 
been  more  than  a  difference  in  the  wording  of  their 
respective  platforms,  and  since  1918,  as  if  to  prove 
that  they  were  one  and  the  same,  they  have  fused 
in  those  district  (notably  in  Wisconsin  and  in  New 
York)  where  the  Socialist  candidates  would  have 
been  elected  in  a  three  cornered  fight. 

Before  the  Denver  Convention,  I  was  invited  by 
Mr.  Bryan  to  his  home  near  Lincoln,  Nebraska,  where 
I  spent  a  week  with  him.  He  expected  to  be  nom 
inated,  and  we  put  in  our  time  going  over  a  platform 
for  the  Denver  Convention  and  discussing  and  plan 
ning  the  campaign.  I  had  great  admiration  for 
Bryan  because  of  his  sterling  qualities  as  a  man,  and 
because  of  his  ability  to  state  what  he  had  to  say  in 
a  forceful  and  eloquent  manner,  and  because  I  be 
lieved  that  he  had  the  moral  courage  to  stand  by  his 
principles. 

The  week  that  I  spent  with  him  gave  me  an  op 
portunity  to  know  the  man  intimately.  I  had  access 
to  his  library  and  conversed  with  him  every  day. 

258 


We  walked  and  drove  together  and  in  the  course  of 
our  conversation  we  covered  many  topics.  I  found 
that  he  was  fairly  well  versed  in  the  law ;  that  he  had 
studied  Blackstone  and  Kent  and  the  English  prece 
dents,  but  that  he  was  utterly  ignorant  of  almost 
everything  else  except  the  bible  and  the  evils  of  in 
temperance;  that  his  library  contained  almost  no 
books  whatever  of  value  to  a  man  fitting  himself  to 
be  President  of  the  United  States,  or  even  member  of 
a  state  legislature.  I  also  found  that,  while  his  per 
sonality  was  charming,  whatever  ability  nature  may 
have  endowed  him  with  had  been  badly  dwarfed 
and  crippled  by  a  narrow  education,  and  that  he  was 
not  big  enough  to  overcome  his  training  by  con 
tinuing  his  investigations  of  men  and  affairs  after  he 
entered  public  life. 

Bryan  asked  me  to  return  by  way  of  Lincoln  after 
the  Denver  Convention  and  go  into  greater  detail 
with  regard  to  the  campaign.  He  knew  that  I  was 
well  acquainted  writh  Roger  Sullivan,  of  Chicago, 
who  had  become  the  democratic  boss  of  Illinois  and 
who  was  reputed  to  be  very  rich.  He  was  also 
aware  of  the  fact  that  Sullivan  for  some  years  had 
been  a  resident  of  South  Dakota  when  a  very  young 
man  and  that  I  had  had  his  brother,  who  was  a  re 
publican,  made  surveyor-general  of  the  State  of 
South  Dakota.  He  knew,  furthermore,  that  I  was 
well  acquainted  writh  Murphy,  of  New  ^ork,  the  boss 
of  Tammany  Hall,  as  well  as  with  Arthur  Brisbane, 
the  editor  of  the  Hearst  newspapers.  Bryan  wished 
me  to  see  Sullivan,  Murphy  and  Brisbane  and  author 
ized  me  to  say  to  Sullivan  and  Murphy  that  he  de 
sired  their  support  in  the  campaign  and  that  they 
should  receive  due  and  proper  consideration  if  he 
were  elected  President  of  the  United  States;  that 
they  would  be  consulted  about  affairs  in  their  re 
spective  localities  and  that  their  political  importance 
would  be  recognized.  I  had  no  trouble  with  Sulli- 

259 


van  and  Murphy  and  easily  secured  their  pledges  to 
stand  by  the  ticket.  I  then  talked  with  Arthur  Bris 
bane,  hoping  to  receive  the  support  of  the  Hearst 
newspapers  of  which  he  was  the  editor. 

Brisbane,  in  my  opinion,  has  more  general  knowl 
edge  of  the  past  and  present  and  of  books  than  any 
other  man  in  America,  and  he  seems  to  have  the  ma 
terial  ready  for  use.  I  have  always  had  a  high  re 
gard  for  his  ability  and  experience.  When  I  ap 
proached  him  and  urged  his  support  of  Bryan,  he 
turned  to  me  and  said,  "Bryan  doesn't  know  enough 
to  be  President;  he  is  a  provincial  fellow,  prejudiced 
by  his  training.  He  has  none  of  the  knowledge  that 
a  man  must  possess  in  order  to  be  fit  for  the  position 
of  President  of  the  United  States." 

I  then  asked  Brisbane  how  much  money  he  had 
made  the  preceding  year  through  his  writings,  lie 
replied  that  it  was  about  $70,000.  Then  I  said, 
"That  is  nothing.  Bryan  made  $100,000  from  the 
sale  of  his  books  and  through  his  lectures,  and  yet 
you  say  Bryan  doesn't  know  enough  to  be  President." 

I  could  make  no  impression  upon  Brisbane,  how 
ever,  for  he  still  adhered  to  his  position  that  Bryan 
was  impossible.  So  far  as  I  know,  he  is  still  of  that 
opinion. 

There  are  other  incidents — many  of  them — that 
have  transpired  during  the  past  few  years,  that  I 
could  cite  if  more  proof  were  necessary  to  establish 
my  point.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  on  this  score,  I 
have  said  enough.  The  able  men  as  a  rule,  do  not 
go  into  politics.  They  stay  in  business,  and  with 
the  -wealth  that  they  derive  through  their  special 
privileges  and  monopolies  they  support  one  or  both 
of  the  old  parties — turning  their  contributions  into 
the  channel  that  will  yield  the  largest  net  returns. 


260 


XVII.     CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW 

The  Union  and  Central  Pacific  Railroads,  from 
Omaha  to  San  Francisco,  had  been  constructed  by  a 
company  organized  by  Ames,  of  Boston,  and  his  as 
sociates.  They  had  succeeded  in  getting  Congress 
to  give  a  land  grant  consisting  of  the  odd  numbered 
sections  of  land — for  a  strip  ten  miles  wide  on  each 
side  of  the  main  track  from  Omaha  to  San  Francisco. 
Besides  that  the  Government  had  appropriated 
money  enough  to  more  than  build  and  equip  the  en 
tire  road.  In  return  for  this  money  the  Government 
was  given  a  second  mortgage  on  the  property. 

The  road  never  paid  any  interest  to  the  Govern 
ment,  but  allowed  it  to  accumulate.  They  estab 
lished  freight  rates  that  were  confiscatory,  as  far  as 
the  public  was  concerned.  For  example,  on  goods 
shipped  from  Omaha  to  Nevada  they  charged  the 
rate  from  Omaha  to  San  Francisco  and  then  added 
the  local  rate  back,  from  San  Francisco  to  the  point 
in  Nevada.  The  same  was  true  in  Utah,  except  that 
in  Utah  the  Mormon  Church  furnished  one  of  the 
directors  of  the  road  and  received  favorable  rates, 
so  that  their  entire  influence  was  with  the  railroad 
and  its  system  of  exploitation. 

In  1896,  the  Government's  second  mortgage  wras 
about  to  mature,  and  the  people  controlling  the  Cen 
tral  and  Union  Pacific  railroads  put  them  in  the 
hands  of  a  receiver  and  then  appointed  a  re-organi 
zation  committee.  In  the  meantime  a  through  line 
had  been  created  by  a  combination  between  the 
Union  and  Central  Pacific  from  San  Francisco  to 
Omaha,  the  Northwestern  Railroad  from  Omaha  to 
Chicago,  and  the  New  York  Central  Railroad  from 
Chicago  to  New  York.  The  reorganization  com 
mittee  was  appointed  for  the  purpose  of  swindling 
the  Government  out  of  its  entire  claim  by  foreclosing 
the  first  mortgage  and  by  separating  the  Union  Paci 
fic  from  all  its  branch  lines.  This  reorganization 

261 


committee  included  Marvin  Hughitt,  the  President  of 
the  Northwestern  Railroad  and  Chauncey  Depew, 
President  of  the  New  York  Central  Railroad.  It  was, 
I  think,  in  connection  with  my  efforts  to  head  off  this 
robbery  that  Chauncey  Depew's  name  first  appears 
in  the  Congressional  Record. 

So  complete  was  my  exposure  of  the  rascality  that 
the  promoters  were  unable  to  carry  through  their 
scheme.  My  stand  naturally  aroused  the  hostility  of 
the  New  York  Central  and  the  Northwestern  Rail 
road  interests. 

Nor  were  these  my  only  offenses  against  the  sacred 
railroad  privileges.  I  have  already  related  the  es 
sential  facts  concerning  my  fight  on  the  railway  mail 
pay,  during  which  I  showed  that  the  Government 
paid  the  railroads  for  carrying  the  mail  ten  times  as 
much  per  pound  as  the  express  companies  paid  the 
railroads  for  carrying  express  on  the  same  train,  in 
the  same  car,  under  almost  exactly  identical  condi 
tions,  and  that  the  New  York  Central  Railroad  in 
particular  received  from  the  Government,  for  carry 
ing  the  mail  between  New  York  and  Buffalo,  a  sum 
sufficient  to  pay  the  interest  at  six  per  cent  upon  the 
total  cost  of  building  and  equiping  a  double-tracked 
railroad  from  New  York  to  Buffalo.  Finally  I  moved 
to  reduce  the  railroad  mail  pay  by  20  per  cent,  and 
introduced  a  bill  providing  for  government  owner 
ship  of  the  railroads  and  the  fixing  of  passenger  rates 
at  one  cent  a  mile,  which  I  proved  would  be  possible 
if  all  passes  and  other  forms  of  free  transportation 
were  eliminated. 

It  was  to  guard  against  such  dangerous  tendencies 
that  the  New  York  Central  Railroad  sent  Chauncey 
M.  Depew  to  the  Senate  in  1898.  Depew  was  not 
sent  to  represent  the  State  of  New  York,  or  the  people 
of  the  United  States,  but  to  protect  and  foster  the 
interests  of  the  railroads  in  general  and  of  the  New 
York  Central  in  particular. 

262 


Depew  had  been  in  the  Senate  a  little  less  than 
sixty  days  when  he  found  occasion  to  attack  me.  I 
reproduce  his  entire  speech  of  February  7th,  1900: 

Mr.  DEPEW :  "Mr.  President,  on  the  31st  of  Jan 
uary,  the  Senator  from  South  Dakota  (Mr.  Petti- 
grew),  in  the  course  of  his  speech  on  the  Philippine 
question,  made  the  following  remarks  in  reference  to 
the  president  of  the  Philippine  Commission,  Presi 
dent  Schurman,  of  Cornell  University.  He  said : 

"  'Mr.  Schurman,  in  his  Chicago  inter 
view  (and  this  is  the  only  authority  I  will 
read  which  is  not  vouched  for  by  official 
documents)  August  20th,  1899,  said: 

"  *  "General  Aguinaldo  is  believed  on  the 
island  to  be  honest,  and  I  think  that  he  is 
acting  honestly  in  money  matters,  but  whe 
ther  from  moral  or  political  reasons  I  would 
not  say."  (Oriental  American,  Page  99.) 

"  'The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  he  tried 
to  bribe  the  insurgents,  as  near  as  we  can 
ascertain,  and  failed ;  they  would  not  take 
gold  for  peace/ 

"The  speech  of  the  Senator  from  South  Dakota 
was  brought  to  the  attention  of  the  president  of  Cor 
nell,  and  I  have  from  him  the  following  letter,  which 
I  will  read.  I  do  it  for  the  purpose  of  having  the 
Record  corrected  by  his  statement: 

"  'Cornell  University,  Office 

of  the  President, 
Ithaca,  N.  Y.,  February  3,  1910. 

"'Dear  Senator  Depew:  I  see,  from  page 
1362  of  the  Congressional  Record,  that  Sen 
ator  Pettigrew,  speaking  of  myself,  says : 

"  '  'The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  he  tried 
to  bribe  the  insurgents,  as  near  as  we  can 
ascertain,  and  failed;  but  they  would  not 
take  gold  for  peace." 

263 


"  'Had  this  preposterous  statement  been 
made  anywhere  else  I  should  not  have  paid 
any  attention  to  it;  but  as  it  has  been  made 
in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  I  desire 
to  say  to  you  that  it  is  absolutely  without 
foundation. 

"  'Very  truly  yours, 

"  'J.  G.  SCHURMAN. 
"  'Hon.  Chauncey  M.  Depew, 
United  States  Senate, 
Washington,  D.  C.' 

"Now,  Mr.  President,  at  the  time  this  speech  was 
being  made,  President  Schurman  was  in  this  city 
upon  business  connected  with  his  report  and  the 
report  of  his  commission  on  the  Philippine  matter. 
He  was  at  that  very  hour  in  conference  with  the 
President  at  the  White  House,  and  therefore  com 
petent  to  be  summoned. 

"It  seems  to  me  that  the  alleged  facts  which  have 
been  brought  forward  by  my  friend,  the  Senator  from 
South  Dakota,  in  order  to  substantiate  his  conten 
tion  that  the  President  of  the  United  States  is  a  tyrant 
and  that  Aguinaldo  is  a  patriot  fail  in  the  important 
consideration  that  his  alleged  facts  never  turn  out 
to  be  true. 

"He  has  summoned  the  two  witnesses  who  were 
more  competent  than  any  others  to  testify  on  the 
question  of  the  original  understanding  had  with 
Aguinaldo  and  of  the  position  of  the  Philippine  peo 
ple,  one  Admiral  Dewey  and  the  other  President 
Schurman,  the  president  of  the  Philippine  Commis 
sion. 

"Any  evidence,  any  statement,  in  regard  to  this 
matter  made  by  Admiral  Dewey  would  be  received 
at  once  by  the  people  of  the  United  States  without 
further  question  and  the  same  can  be  said  of  any 

264 


statement  made  by  the  president  of  Cornell  Univer 
sity. 

"But  instead  of  presenting  his  evidence  by  calling 
the  witnesses  themselves,  he  calls  others  for  the  pur 
pose  of  proving  what  they  have  said. 

"With  Admiral  Dewey  here  in  the  city,  his  house 
well  known,  himself  the  most  accessible  of  men,  he 
reads,  as  proving  what  Admiral  Dewey  has  said  and 
what  his  position  is,  an  alleged  proclamation  of 
Aguinaldo,  translated  by  an  unknown  translator  and 
published  without  any  certificate  of  its  authenticity 
in  a  New  England  newspaper;  and  instead  of  ascer 
taining,  when  President  Schurman  is  in  the  city, 
what  his  views  really  are  and  what  he  really  did  say 
and  what  he  really  did  do,  he  reads  a  report  of  an 
anonymous  and  unknown  reporter  in  a  Chicago  news 
paper.  Admiral  Dewey  at  once  branded  the  state 
ment  affecting  him  as  absolutely  and  unqualifiedly 
false,  and  now  President  Schurman  repudiates  the 
testimony  attributed  to  him. 

"I  submit,  Mr.  President,  that  having,  amid  the 
mass  of  newspaper  reports,  of  anonymous  remarks, 
of  testimony  of  no  consideration  and  no  value,  sub 
poenaed  the  two  greatest  and  most  prominent  wit 
nesses  in  the  country,  he  has  done  it  in  a  way  which 
discredits  all  the  alleged  facts  which  are  presented 
on  his  side  or  the  contention  which  Senator  Petti- 
grew  and  his  friends  endeavor  to  make  in  behalf  of 
Aguinaldo  and  in  discredit  of  the  President  and  of 
the  Philippine  policy  of  the  administration. 

"These  facts,  or  alleged  facts,  cited  by  the  Sen 
ator  from  South  Dakota,  are  like  the  army  of  Aguin 
aldo.  Whenever  the  United  States  troops  appear, 
there  is  no  army  of  Aguinaldo.  And  whenever  the 
truth  is  let  in,  as  Admiral  Dewey  and  President 
Schurman  let  it  in,  these  alleged  facts  vanish  in  thin 
air.  The  basis  of  their  whole  contention  has  no  bet 
ter  foundation  than  the  seat  of  the  Aguinaldo  gov- 

265 


ernment,  which,  as  far  as  I  can  ascertain,  is  nowhere 
except  in  the  hat  of  Aguinaldo." 

To  this  I  replied  at  once  and  showed  by  the  Record 
that  Mr.  Schurman,  president  of  Cornell  University, 
who  was  the  head  of  the  commission  that  went  to  the 
Philippines,  sent  by  the  Government  to  try  and  pacify 
the  islands,  had  offered  Aguinaldo  a  Government  posi 
tion  with  a  salary  of  $5,000  per  year  if  he  would  cease 
hostilities.  I  showed  also  that  the  commission  had 
offered  to  pay  a  large  bounty  to  any  of  the  Filipinos 
who  would  come  in  and  surrender  their  guns.  Fur 
thermore,  I  showed  that  Aguinaldo  had  never  talked 
anything  else  but  absolute  independence  and  that  he 
had  talked  with  Dewey  time  and  again  on  the  point. 
Finally  I  charged  the  following  facts  as  proved  by  the 
official  records  in  regard  to  our  conduct  of  affairs  in 
the  Philippine  Islands: 

I  charged  the  suppression  of  information,  the  censor 
ship  of  the  press  and  tampering  with  the  mails; 

I  charged  that  the  press  was  censored,  not  because 
there  was  fear  that  the  enemy  would  secure  important 
information,  but  to  keep  the  facts  from  the  American 
people,  and  I  proved  it ; 

I  charged  that  the  President  began  the  war  on  the 
Filipinos,  and  I  proved  it  by  Otis'  report ; 

I  charged  that  Aguinaldo,  after  hostilities  had  been 
inaugurated,  asked  for  a  truce,  with  the  purpose  of 
endeavoring  to  settle  differences  without  further  blood 
shed,  and  that  the  administration  answered:  "War, 
having  commenced,  must  go  on  to  the  grim  end ;" 

I  charged  that  Otis  changed  the  President's  procla 
mation  to  the  Filipinos  with  the  purpose  of  deceiving 
those  people  and  concealing  our  real  intention  of  re 
maining  in  the  islands; 

I  charged  that  the  Filipinos  were  our  allies ;  that  we 
armed  them,  fought  with  them,  recognized  their  flag 
and  surrendered  Spanish  prisoners  to  them;  that  de 
spite  these  facts  Dewey  finally  captured  Aguinaldo's 
.ships  of  war  in  September  or  October,  1898;  that  Otis, 

266 


on  September  8,  1898,  threatened  to  attack  the  Fili 
pinos,  and  that  we  finally  did  begin  the  fighting; 

I  charged  that  we  made  a  covenant  with  the  Sultan 
of  Sulu,  by  which  the  President  agreed  to  sustain  slav 
ery  and  polygamy  and  pay  the  Sultan  over  $700  a 
month  for  running  Old  Glory  up  over  his  slave  mart 
every  morning  and  taking  it  down  every  night ; 

Finally,  I  pointed  out  that  we  could  not  have  a  repub 
lic  and  an  empire  under  the  same  flag — that  one  or  the 
other  must  go  down;  that  the  attempt  to  govern  any 
people  without  their  consent  was  a  violation  of  our 
theory  of  Government  and  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence;  that  all  governments  derived  their  just 
powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed;  that  .satis 
fying  greed  of  empire  by  conquest  had  caused  the 
downfall  of  every  republic  and  every  empire  in  the 
past. 

To  all  of  this  the  junior  Senator  from  New  York  an 
nounced,  with  his  incomparable  after-dinner,  spirited 
and  effervescent  logic,  that  these  allegations  were  all 
answered  and  disposed  of,  because  Dewey  said  that 
Aguinaldo's  statement  in  relation  to  him  was  a  tissue 
of  falsehoods  and  Schurman  declared  that  he  did  not 
offer  Aguinaldo  gold  for  peace. 

That  was  our  first  contest.  After  that,  from  time  to 
time,  as  long  as  1  remained  in  the  Senate,  Depew  went 
out  of  his  way  to  attack  me.  He  took  the  death  of 
Mark  Hanna  (1904)  as  a  favorable  occasion.  In  the 
course  of  a  funeral  oration,  delivered  over  the  remains 
of  Hanna,  who  had  been  the  factotum  of  the  Repub 
lican  party  and  the  principal  partner  of  Aldrich  as  the 
representative  of  the  corrupt  financial  interests  in  the 
Senate,  Depew  made  the  following  statement: 

"Quite  as  suddenly  as  he  grew  to  be  su 
preme  in  political  management  Senator  Hanna 
became  an  orator.  He  had  been  accustomed 
in  the  boards  of  directors  of  many  corpora 
tions,  where  the  conferences  were  more  in  the 

267 


nature  of  consultations  than  arguments,  to 
influence  his  associates  by  the  lucidity  with 
which  from  a  full  mind  he  could  explain  situ 
ations  and  suggest  policies  or  remedies.  He 
did  not  dare,  however,  except  on  rare  occa 
sions,  to  trust  himself  upon  his  feet.  We,  his 
associates,  can  never  forget  the  day  when  a 
mighty  passion  loosed  his  tongue  and  intro 
duced  into  the  debate  of  this  body  an  original 
and  powerful  speaker.  It  was  June,  1900. 
The  presidential  campaign  for  the  second 
nomination  and  canvass  of  President  McKin- 
ley  was  about  to  open.  Senator  Pettigrew, 
an  active  and  persistent  laborer  in  the  ranks 
of  the  opposition,  was  seeking  material  in 
every  direction  which  would  benefit  his  side. 
Without  notice  he  suddenly  assailed  Senator 
Hanna  in  his  tenderest  point.  He  attacked 
his  honesty,  truthfulness  and  general  char 
acter.  He  accused  him  of  bribery,  perjury, 
and  false  dealing.  Hanna's  reply  was  not  a 
speech  but  an  explosion.  It  was  a  gigantic 
effort,  in  his  almost  uncontrollable  rage,  to 
keep  expression  within  the  limits  of  senatorial 
propriety.  He  .shouted  in  passionate  protest : 

"  'Mr.  President,  the  gentleman  will  find 
that  he  is  mistaken  in  the  people  of  the  United 
States  when  he  attempts,  through  mud-sling 
ing  and  accusations,  to  influence  their  deci 
sion  when  they  are  called  upon  at  the  polls 
next  November  to  decide  upon  the  principles 
that  are  at  issue  and  not  the  men.  When  it 
comes  to  personality,  I  will  stand  up  against 
him  and  compare  my  character  to  his.  I  will 
let  him  tell  what  he  knows;  then  I  will  tell 
what  I  know  about  him/ 

"The  new-born  orator  carried  his  threat 
into  execution  by  a  dramatic  and  picturesque 
speaking  tour  through  South  Dakota,  in 

268 


which,  without  mentioning  Mr.  Pettigrew  or 
referring  to  him  in  any  way,  he  took  away  his 
constituents  by  convincing  them  that  the  doc 
trines  of  their  Senator  were  inimical  to  their 
interests  and  prosperity.  The  titanic  power 
the  Dakota  Senator  had  evoked  was  his  polit 
ical  ruin." 

I  have  given  my  version  of  this  story  in  some  detail 
in  another  chapter  (Chapter  21,  "A  Lost  Election") ;  I 
need  merely  say  at  this  point  that  Mark  Hanna's  "Ex 
plosion"  was  produced  by  my  calling  the  attention  of 
the  Senate  to  a  report  submitted  by  the  Ohio  legisla 
ture  to  the  Senate  Committee  on  Elections  in  which 
careful  and  detailed  data  was  produced  showing  that 
Mark  Hanna  had  been  directly  implicated  in  buying 
his  way  into  the  United  States  Senate. 

I  read  from  the  majority  report  of  the  Committee  of 
the  Ohio  State  Senate,  which  showed  that  Mark  Hanna 
purchased  the  vote  of  a  member  of  the  Ohio  legislature 
for  the  ,sum  of  $20,000;  $10,000  to  be  paid  down  and 
$10,000  after  he  had  voted.  The  testimony  disclosed 
that  Mark  Hanna  had  personal  knowledge  of  this  pur 
chase  and  was  a  party  to  it  and  sent  the  money  from 
Columbus,  where  the  legislature  was  in  session,  to 
Cincinnati  to  be  paid  to  the  purchased  member  of  the 
Ohio  legislature.  The  testimony  also  showed  that  Mark 
Hanna  was  negotiating  for  the  purchase  of  two  or  three 
other  members  of  the  legislature  and  through  this  sys 
tem  of  pribery  and  corruption  he  succeeded  in  getting 
his  seat  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States. 

I  then  read  the  minority  report  of  the  Committee 
on  Elections  in  the  Senate  which  went  into  the  sub 
ject  fully  and  disclosed  the  facts.  The  Republican 
members  of  the  Committee  on  Elections  in  the  Sen 
ate — and  they  were  in  the  majority — simply  alluded 
to  the  testimony  laid  before  them  by  the  Ohio  State 
Senate  and  refused  to  investigate,  and  gave  as  a 
reason  that  the  Ohio  State  Senate  had  not  sent  a  man 

269 


down  there  to  prosecute  the  case.  In  other  words, 
Mark  Hanna  was  such  a  factotum  in  the  Republican 
party  in  all  its  councils  that  it  did  not  disturb  the 
Republicans  at  all,  as  so  many  of  them  were  used 
to  using  money  to  secure  their  election.  Besides, 
Mark  Hanna  at  that  time  was  Chairman  of  the  Re 
publican  National  Committee. 
Depew  says: 

"Mark  Hanna's  reply  was  not  a  speech, 
but  an  explosion.  It  was  a  gigantic  effort, 
in  his  almost  uncontrollable  rage,  to  keep 
expression  within  the  limits  of  Senatorial 
propriety.  He  shouted  in  passionate  pro 
test: 

"  'Mr.  President,  the  gentleman  will  find 
that  he  is  mistaken  in  the  people  of  the 
United  States  when  he  attempts,  through 
mud-slinging  and  accusations,  to  influence 
their  decision  when  they  are  called  upon  at 
the  polls  next  November  to  decide  upon  the 
principles  that  are  at  issue  and  not  the  men. 
When  it  comes  to  personality,  I  will  stand 
up  against  him  and  compare  my  character 
to  his.  I  will  let  him  tell  what  he  knows; 
then  I  will  tell  what  I  know  about  him/ ' 

And  this  is  Chauncey  Depew's  idea  of  oratory. 
In  other  words,  the  Bowery  response,  "You're 
another!"  Hanna  admitted  that  he  was  all  that  I 
said  he  was,  but  that  he  could  show  I  was  a  little 
worse,  which  convinced  me  that  Chauncey  Depew 
was  a  phrase-maker  of  but  little  intellect,  to  balance 
considerable  avoirdupois. 

For  Depew's  part  in  this  whole  transaction  his 
name  ought  to  go  down  in  history  and  he  should  put 
a  halo  on  his  own  statue  which  he  has  already  erected 
and  presented  to  his  native  town  in  New  York.  I 
should  suppose  it  would  be  appropriate  to  have  a 

270 


dove  come  down  from  Heaven  and  perch  upon  his 
shoulder  and  say:  "I  am  from  the  boodle  crowd  in 
New  York  who  run  the  Government  of  the  United 
States,  and  this  is  my  beloved  son  in  whom  I  am 
well  pleased." 


271 


XVIIT.    BRYANISM 

It  is  not  easy  to  characterize  a  complex  political  situ 
ation  in  a  brief  and  comprehensive  manner.  If  such  a 
thing  can  be  done  at  all,  I  believe  that  it  can  be  done 
most  successfully  through  the  personality  of  two  men 
who  typify  the  two  extremes  of  American  political  life. 
One  of  these  men  that  I  shall  select  for  the  purpose  is 
William  Jennings  Bryan.  The  other  is  Joe  Cannon  of 
Illinois.  The  first  is  a  Democrat — the  second  a  Repub 
lican. 

I  have  known  both  of  these  men  for  many  years. 
Neither  is  a  statesman  in  any  sense  of  the  word.  Both 
are  lawyers  and  suffer  from  the  disqualifications  that 
go  with  the  study  and  practice  of  the  law.  Bryan  has 
integrity,  of  a  ,sort;  Cannon  has  a  keen  mind.  Both 
understand  the  political  game,  and  both  play  it  ac 
cording  to  their  lights.  Bryan  plays  prohibition  poli 
tics;  Cannon  plays  plutocratic  politics.  Neither  has 
any  real  grasp  of  the  meaning  of  the  phrase  'the  pub 
lic  welfare." 

In  the  previous  chapter,  I  have  referred  to  the  sup 
port  which  I  gave  Mr.  Bryan  in  his  fight  against  the 
eastern  bankers  and  trust  magnates.  The  fight  ended 
in  failure  because  Mr.  Bryan  was  very  weak  while  the 
trusts  were  very  strong.  Since  that  fight,  Bryan  has 
showed  himself  for  what  he  is — an  American  politician, 
vacillating,  uncertain,  overlooking  the  fundamental 
things,  ignorant  of  the  forces  that  are  shaping  Ameri 
can  public  life,  incapable  of  thinking  in  terms  of  reality, 
but  making  phrases  as  a  substitute  for  thought. 

Mr.  Bryan  is  weak,  not  corrupt.  That  is  why  I  wish 
to  describe  some  of  his  public  activities  during  the  past 
few  years.  He  is  a  type  of  the  "good  man"  that  so 
often  fools  the  American  people.  By  way  of  illustra 
tion,  let  me  refer  to  two  incidents  which  show  Mr. 
Bryan's  attitude  toward  public  questions  and  his 
method  of  judging  matters  of  personal  conduct. 

When  the  Spanish  Treaty  was  pending  in  the  Senate 

272 


of  the  United  States  and  we  believed  that  we  had  it 
defeated  beyond  a  question,  Bryan  came  to  Washington 
from  his  home  in  Nebraska  and  urged  a  ratification  of 
the  treaty.  He  saw  several  Senators,  before  he  came 
to  me,  and  urged  them  to  vote  for  ratification.  Bryan 
knew  the  grounds  upon  which  I  was  opposing  the  rati 
fication  of  the  treaty  and  yet  he  had  the  temerity  to 
come  and  ask  me  to  vote  for  ratification  of  the  treaty. 
He  argued  that  the  treaty  would  entirely  end  our 
troubles  with  Spain  and  that,  once  it  was  ratified,  the 
nation  would  have  an  opportunity  to  perform  a  great 
moral  duty — the  granting  of  freedom,  under  a  wise  and 
generous  protectorate,  to  the  people  of  the  Philippines. 
His  chief  argument  was  that  should  the  Republicans 
not  give  the  people  of  the  Philippines  their  indepen 
dence,  but,  instead,  should  undertake  to  conquer  the 
islands  and  annex  them  to  the  United  States,  such  a 
course  would  and  ought  to  drive  the  Republican  party 
from  power.  The  Filipinos  had  been  our  allies  in 
the  war  with  Spain,  and  he  held  that  our  repudiation 
of  an  alliance  by  such  an  act  of  bad  faith  as  that  im 
plied  in  the  conquest  of  the  islands  would  wreck  any 
administration  that  attempted  it. 

Bryan  thus  made  the  ratification  of  the  Spanish 
Treaty  an  act  of  political  expediency,  and  did  not  seem 
to  realize  that  every  person  who  voted  to  ratify  the 
treaty  at  the  same  time  endorsed  the  doctrine  of  pur 
chasing  a  country  and  its  people  without  their  consent 
— the  very  doctrine  on  which  he  proposed  to  pillory  the 
Republican  administration  before  the  country.  Neither 
did  he  understand  that  a  Senator  holding  my  views  and 
voting  for  ratification  would  be  guilty  of  the  most  out 
rageous  moral  turpitude  and  depravity. 

I  called  Mr.  Bryan's  attention  to  the  fact  that,  if  we 
voted  for  the  treaty,  it  would  be  fair  for  the  adminis 
tration  to  assume  that  the  Senate  .sympathized  with 
the  spirit  of  the  document  which,  as  I  pointed  out,  be 
sides  violating  every  principle  of  free  government,  con 
travened  the  Constitution  which  I  had  sworn  to  sup- 

273 


port.  I  told  him  that  I  would  sooner  cut  off  my  right 
arm  than  cast  my  vote  for  the  treaty.  I  was  so  incensed 
by  his  effort  to  induce  me,  on  the  score  of  expediency, 
to  change  front  on  a  matter  of  principle  and  stultify 
myself,  that  I  finally  told  him  emphatically  that  he  had 
no  business  in  Washington  on  such  an  errand ;  that  his 
stand  reflected  on  his  character  and  reputation  as  a 
man,  and  indicated  a  lack  of  knowledge  of  human  af 
fairs  which  must  make  his  friends  feel  that  he  was  not 
a  suitable  person  to  be  President  of  the  United  States. 

Despite  the  vigor  of  my  statement,  I  doubt  if  Bryan 
understood  what  I  was  driving  at.  He  was  seeking 
political  capital  and  he  was  willing  to  take  it  where  he 
found  it,  without  paying  too  much  attention  to  nice 
questions  of  principle. 

The  treaty  was  ratified  by  one  more  vote  than  was 
necessary.  I  do  not  believe  Mr.  Bryan's  visit  changed 
the  result,  although  several  Democrats,  who  made 
speeches  against  it,  voted  for  the  treaty.  The  only 
effect  of  his  visit  was  to  give  an  excuse  for  Democrats, 
for  a  cash  consideration,  to  sell  out  to  Aldrich  and  vote 
for  the  treaty. 

Andrew  Carnegie,  in  his  autobiography,  on  page  364, 
refers  to  this  subject  as  follows: 

"Mr.  Bryan  had  it  in  his  power  at  one  time 
to  defeat  in  the  Senate  this  feature  of  the 
Treaty  of  Peace  with  Spain.  I  went  to  Wash 
ington  to  try  to  effect  this,  and  remained  there 
until  the  vote  was  taken.  I  was  told  that  when 
Mr.  Bryan  was  in  Washington  he  had  advised 
his  friends  that  it  would  be  good  party  policy 
to  allow  the  treaty  to  pass.  This  would  dis 
credit  the  Republican  party  before  the  people; 
that  'paying  twenty  millions  for  a  revolution' 
would  defeat  any  party.  There  were  seven 
staunch  Bryan  men  anxious  to  vote  against 
Philippines  annexation. 

"Mr.  Bryan  had  called  to  see  men  in  New 

274 


York  upon  the  subject,  because  my  opposition 
to  the  purchase  had  been  so  pronounced,  and 
I  now  wired  him  at  Omaha,  explaining  the  sit 
uation  and  begging  him  to  write  me  that  his 
friends  could  use  their  own  judgment.  His 
reply  was  what  I  have  stated — better  have  the 
Republicans  pass  it  and  let  it  then  go  before 
the  people.  I  thought  it  unworthy  of  him  to 
subordinate  such  an  is.sue,  fraught  with  de 
plorable  consequences,  to  mere  party  politics. 
It  required  the  casting  vote  of  the  Speaker 
to  carry  the  measure.  One  word  from  Mr. 
Bryan  would  have  saved  the  country  from  the 
disaster.  I  could  not  be  cordial  to  him  for 
years  afterwards.  He  had  seemed  to  me  a 
man  who  was  willing  to  sacrifice  his  country 
and  his  personal  convictions  for  party  advan 
tage." 

This  is  a  significant  verification  of  my  conclusions, 
but  it  is  rather  amusing  to  read  Carnegie's  comments 
on  the  perfidy  of  Bryan.  The  facts  in  his  own  case  do 
not  permit  him  a  great  deal  of  latitude  in  criticizing 
others.  Carnegie  was  a  very  active  opponent  of  the 
treaty  and  of  the  doctrine  of  imperialism.  He  was  a 
member  of  the  conference  which  met  at  the  Plaza  Hotel 
(New  York)  on  the  6th  of  January,  1900,  and  he  took 
a  prominent  part  in  its  discussions  (see  Chapter 
XXIII).  The  conference  was  called  by  the  New  Eng 
land  Anti-Imperialist  League,  to  organize  an  Anti-Im 
perialist  political  party  for  the  purpose  of  compelling 
the  old  parties  to  agree  to  the  independence  of  the 
Philippines,  and  for  the  purpose  of  opposing  the  acqui 
sition  of  tropical  countries. 

The  conference  was  called  ostensibly  to  discuss  the 
annexation  of  the  Philippines  and  the  Spanish  West 
Indies  and  Hawaii.  Its  real  purpose  was  to  meet  the 
broader  question  as  to  whether  we  should  start  on  the 
course  of  empire.  In  a  vigorous  speech  Mr.  Carnegie 

275 


urged  upon  the  conference  the  necessity  of  a  new  polit 
ical  party  for  the  purpo.se  of  opposing  the  imperial 
policy  of  both  the  old  parties,  and  said  that  he  would 
give  as  much  money,  dollar  for  dollar,  as  all  the  rest 
of  us  could  raise  toward  promoting  the  campaign.  As 
a  pledge  of  good  faith,  he  subscribed  twenty-five  thou 
sand  dollars  on  the  spot.  Afterward,  he  withdrew  com 
pletely  from  the  movement  because  the  organizers  of 
the  .steel  trust  served  notice  on  him  that  he  must  choose 
between  a  comfortable  berth  with  them  and  an  Anti- 
Imperialist  party,  which  threatened  the  whole  success 
of  the  steel  trust  movement;  and  the  organizers  of 
the  steel  trust  told  Carnegie  that,  unless  McKinley  was 
elected,  they  would  not  attempt  to  form  the  trust,  as 
they  needed  a  McKinley  tariff  in  order  to  justify  its 
great  overcapitalization.  It  was  a  case  of  imperialism 
and  a  tariff  or  no  trust  and  Carnegie  lined  up  with  the 
imperialists. 

Despite  Mr.  Carnegie's  comments,  he  and  Bryan 
measure  up  very  much  alike.  Bryan  was  willing  to 
sell  his  convictions  for  a  .supposed  political  advantage ; 
Carnegie  sold  his  for  gold.  Bryan's  act  was  one  of 
intellectual  stupidity.  Carnegie's  act  was  prompted  by 
what  big  business  calls  enlightened  self-interest. 

Bryan  has  the  point  of  view  of  an  ordinary  American 
business  man.  His  ruling  passion  is  "safety  first" — 
not  the  financial  .safety  of  a  manufacturer*  but  the 
political  safety  of  a  visionless  manipulation  of  party 
machinery.  This  trait  appeared  very  clearly  in  his 
activities  during  the  Baltimore  Convention  of  1912, 
where  Woodrow  Wilson  was  nominated  for  President 
of  the  United  States,  with  Champ  Clark,  Speaker  of 
the  House,  as  his  chief  opponent.  The  custom  in  Dem 
ocratic  conventions  had  always  been  to  disregard  the 
two-thirds  rule  and  give  a  candidate  the  nomination 
when  he  had  secured  a  majority  and  held  it  for  several 
ballots. 

At  Baltimore,  after  Clark  had  for  several  ballots  re 
ceived  the  votes  of  a  majority  of  the  delegates,  Bryan, 

276 


who  had  been  instructed  at  the  primaries  to  vote  for 
Clark  and  use  all  honorable  means  to  secure  his  nomi 
nation,  arose  in  the  convention  and  said  that  he  would 
abandon  him  and  violate  the  instructions  of  the  Demo 
crats  of  Nebraska  as  long  as  the  Democratic  delegates 
in  the  convention  from  the  state  of  New  York  continued 
to  vote  for  Clark.  This  occurred  after  the  delegations 
from  New  York,  Virginia  and  Illinois  had  voted  in  the 
convention  with  Bryan  to  seat  the  Wilson  delegates 
and  oust  the  Clark  delegates  from  South  Dakota,  al 
though  Clark  had  carried  South  Dakota  in  the  prima 
ries  by  twenty-five  hundred  majority. 

Bryan  could  vote  with  Roger  Sullivan  of  Chicago, 
and  Ryan  of  Virginia,  and  the  Tammany  Democrats  of 
New  York,  to  throw  Clark  delegates  out  of  the  conven 
tion  and  seat  Wilson  delegates,  but  his  pure  soul  would 
not  permit  him  to  vote  for  Clark  while  New  York  dele 
gates  were  voting  for  him.  This  whole  performance 
branded  Bryan  as  not  only  a  hypocrite,  but  also  as  a 
man  lacking  in  character  and  in  intellect 

Immediately  upon  Bryan  making  the  announcement, 
I  gave  out  the  following  interview  which  was  published 
in  all  the  leading  newspapers  of  the  United  States : 

"Mr.  Bryan's  statement  that  he  will  support  no  can 
didate  for  President  who  has  the  support  of  New  York 
is  the  rankest  hypocrisy.  It  is  the  excuse  of  the  dema 
gogue  who  believes  that  such  a  statement  will  be  popu 
lar  among  the  western  voters,  and  has  been  seized 
upon  by  Mr.  Bryan  as  an  excuse  for  doing  what  he  has 
intended  to  do  ever  since  he  was  elected  as  a  delegate 
to  this  convention  by  the  Democrats  of  Nebraska. 

"He  was  not  only  instructed  by  the  Democrats  of 
Nebraska  to  vote  for  Mr.  Clark,  but  instructed  by  the 
State  Convention  to  use  all  honorable  means  to  secure 
his  nomination.  After  that,  he  stumped  Ohio,  Mary 
land  and  Florida  in  Wilson's  interest.  While  claiming 
that  he  maintained  strict  neutrality  between  Clark  and 
Wilson,  during  the  last  week  in  May,  Wilson's  man 
agers  sent  a  letter  to  every  Democratic  voter  in  South 

277 


Dakota  saying  that  Mr.  Bryan  had  endorsed  Wilson 
and  made  .speeches  in  Ohio  and  Maryland  in  support  of 
him. 

"This  letter  was  circulated  with  Mr.  Bryan's  knowl 
edge  and  consent.  Mr.  Bryan  was  thoroughly  familiar 
with  the  campaign  made  in  South  Dakota.  He  was 
familiar  with  the  primary  law  of  that  state  and  knows 
that  there  were  two  Clark  tickets  in  the  field  and  that 
one  of  these  was  put  up  by  Wilson's  managers  to  divide 
the  Clark  vote,  hoping  to  give  Wilson  a  plurality. 

"He  knows  that  this  bogus  ticket  was  not  supported 
by  the  men  who  put  it  into  the  field,  and  he  is  fully 
aware  that  Clark  carried  the  state  by  over  twenty-five 
hundred  majority  over  Wilson.  Yet  he  voted  to  seat 
the  Wilson  delegates  in  this  convention,  joining  with 
the  ninety  votes  from  New  York  and  the  fifty-eight 
from  Illinois  and  the  Virginia  delegation,  of  which 
Mr.  Ryan  is  a  member,  to  oust  the  Clark  delegates 
from  South  Dakota.  Yet  Mr.  Bryan  would  now  have 
us  believe  that  no  honest  Democrat  can  co-operate  with 
New  York,  Illinois  and  Virginia  in  this  convention." 

The  publication  of  this  interview  regarding  Bryan's 
hypocrisy  and  the  other  facts  connected  with  the  Bal 
timore  Convention  ended  his  political  career,  and  yet 
he  still  hopes  that  he  will  be  nominated  four  years 
from  now,  for  he  honestly  believes  that  he  was  pre 
destined  from  his  birth  to  be  President  of  the  United 
States. 

This  is  the  William  Jennings  Bryan,  who  "led"  the 
Democratic  party  until  he  was  succeeded  by  Woodrow 
Wilson — the  Bryan  of  political  expediency  and  polit 
ical  chicanery.  He  has  traveled  around  the  world,  yet 
he  knows  little  of  international  affairs.  He  has  been 
from  one  end  of  the  United  States  to  another,  yet  he 
is  ignorant  of  America. 

Furthermore,  this  is  Bryanism — a  fluent  tongue,  a 
resonant  voice,  the  plausible  statement  of  half  truths, 
an  appeal  to  the  passions  and  prejudices  of  the  mo 
ment,  a  mediocre  mind,  and  a  verbal  fealty  to  "right," 

278 


"justice,"  "liberty"  and  "brotherhood."  An  ignorant 
elactorate  has  always  followed  after  such  superficial 
qualities. 

Bryan  has  never  told  any  of  the  real  truths  of  mod 
ern  life,  because  he  does  not  know  them.  He  has  never 
made  a  fight  on  an  issue  of  principle  because  he  has 
no  abiding  principle.  He  listens.  He  watches  his  au 
dience.  He  gauges  its  intelligence  and  then  he  makes 
his  point.  Mr.  Bryan  is  reputed  to  be  one  of  the  best 
speakers  in  the  United  States.  His  reputation  in  this 
regard  has  been  won  not  by  what  he  says  but  by  the 
way  in  which  he  says  it.  Nothing  in  his  public  career, 
with  the  possible  exception  of  his  resignation  as  Secre 
tary  of  State,  has  been  based  on  a  hard-fought  or  hard- 
won  principle.  Rather  he  has  yielded  to  the  necessity 
of  the  moment,  trusting  that  in  the  end  all  would  be 
well,  but  without  foreseeing  the  end  or  understanding 
its  import. 

Bryanism  carries  with  it  no  taint  of  corruption — no 
suggestion  of  wilful  wrongdoing.  It  is  the  politics  of 
an  ignorant,  unimaginable  and  of  a  rather  vain  mind 
that  is  quick  in  trifles  and  impotent  before  major  issues. 
Reform  politics  in  the  United  States  has  never  existed 
on  any  other  basis,  and  therefore  reform  politics  has 
always  proved  an  easy  mark  for  the  machinations  of 
big  business. 


279 


XIX.     CANNONISM 

So  much  for  the  weak  Mr.  Bryan.  Now  for  the  cor 
rupt  Joe  Cannon.  Bryan  never  knowingly  served  the 
vested  interests.  He  fought  them  to  the  extent  of  his 
ability  and  interspersed  his  political  battles  by  giving 
lectures  on  "Prohibition"  and  "Immortality."  Joe  Can 
non,  on  the  other  hand,  was  one  of  the  most  faithful 
servants  that  the  vested  interests  of  the  United  States 
ever  had  in  either  house  of  Congress.  He  is  a  type  of 
those  all-too-numerous  public  men  who  are  the  political 
body-servants  of  big  business. 

Joe  Cannon  is  istill  in  Congress.  For  over  forty  years 
he  has  been  a  member  of  the  House  of  Representa 
tives,  and,  as  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Appro 
priations  and,  as  Speaker,  has  had  more  to  do  with 
shaping  legislation  than  any  other  man  in  the  House. 
In  fact,  he  was  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  band  of  plun 
derers  that,  in  both  Houses  of  Congress,  for  two  gen 
erations  dominated  the  public  affairs  and  made  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  one  of  the  most  cor 
rupt  in  the  world. 

Under  the  guidance  of  this  clique  of  men  all  legis 
lation  was  directed  to  the  granting  of  special  privileges 
to  corporations,  giving  them  power  to  tax  and  exploit 
the  people  of  the  United  States.  The  tariff  became  the 
chief  vehicle  for  the  robbery  of  the  public  and  its 
beneficiaries  were  the  chief  contributors  to  the  great 
campaign  funds  collected  by  the  Republican  party  to 
demoralize  the  voters  of  the  nation.  Under  the  regime 
of  Cannonism  concessions  and  privileges  of  every  sort, 
not  only  for  the  public  service  and  industrial  corpora 
tions,  but  for  the  financial  institutions  of  the  country, 
received  the  chief  attention  of  Congress,  and  these 
privileges  were  so  profitable  that  the  halls  of  the  House 
and  Senate  swarmed  with  innumerable  lobbyists  whose 
vocation  it  was  to  appeal  to  the  ordinary  members  of 
both  branches  with  whatever  argument  was  necessary, 

280 


being  assured  in  advance  of  the  ardent  and  powerful 
support  of  Joe  Cannon  and  the  other  leaders. 

The  granting  of  these  concessions  and  privileges,  by 
which  the  few  planned  to  plunder  the  many,  is  the 
essence  of  Cannonism.  Elected  to  office  of  trust  by  the 
franchise  of  their  fellow-citizens,  Cannon  and  his  like 
utilize  their  position  to  serve,  not  the  people  who 
elected  them,  but  the  great  interests  which  provide  the 
campaign  funds  and  other  forms  of  compensation. 

Thus  a  new  profession  arose — the  profession  of  pub 
lic  lackeying  to  the  plutocracy.  To  enter  this  profes 
sion  it  was  necessary,  first,  to  buy  or  fool  the  people, 
and,  second,  to  convince  the  leaders  of  the  plutocracy 
of  your  sincere  intention  to  serve  their  interests.  Thus 
was  perfidy  coupled  with  venality  by  these  "public  ser 
vants"  who  had  taken  an  oath  to  support  the  Constitu 
tion  and  then  busied  themselves  in  robbing  the  people. 

Most  of  the  leaders  among  the  political  spoilsmen 
were  content  with  a  reasonably  extravagant  living,  but 
Cannon  in  the  House  and  Aldrich  in  the  Senate  were 
not  thus  easily  satisfied.  The  powerful  positions  which 
they  held  enabled  them  to  become  enormously  rich. 

These  men  became  rich  because,  through  their  posi 
tions  of  public  trust,  they  were  able  to  betray  the  Gov 
ernment  and  the  people  into  the  hands  of  the  exploit 
ers.  Let  me  cite  a  few  illustrations  of  the  way  in  which 
this  was  done. 

During  the  nineties  there  was  much  talk  about  the 
"land  frauds."  These  frauds  were  the  product  of  legis 
lation  especially  secured  by  Cannon  and  some  of  his 
aids  in  order  that  the  railroads  might  secure  valuable 
forest  and  mineral  lands  in  the  West  and  Northwest 
without  paying  anything  for  them  beyond  the  cost  of 
securing  the  legislation.  I  was  the  author  of  the  law 
for  the  regulation  and  control  of  the  forest  reservations 
of  the  United  States.  (See  Chapter  II.)  It  was  adopted 
by  the  Senate  and,  as  adopted,  contained  a  clause  which 
permitted  any  homesteader,  whose  homestead  was  em 
braced  within  a  forest  reservation,  to  release  his  home- 

281 


stead  to  the  Government  and  be  accredited  with  the 
time  he  had  lived  upon  it,  and  allowed  to  take  land  from 
the  Government  in  some  other  locality.  Mr.  Cannon 
was  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Appropriations  of 
the  House,  and  chairman  of  the  Conference  Committee, 
and  he  inserted  the  words,  "or  any  other  claimant,"  so 
that,  if  the  lands  of  a  land  grant  railroad  were  em 
braced  within  a  forest  reservation,  the  railroad  com 
pany  could  exchange  them  for  any  other  lands  the 
Government  might  possess.  I  did  not  observe  this 
interlineation  in  the  conference  report,  which  was  read 
rapidly  and  approved  without  first  being  printed. 
Afterward  I  found  that  the  Northern  Pacific  Railroad 
was  receiving  scrip  for  the  sections  of  land  of  its  grant 
which  were  on  the  top  of  Mount  Tacoma  in  Washing 
ton.  Lands  that  were  absolutely  worthless  were  ex 
changed  in  this  way  for  lands  of  the  greatest  value. 

I  stated  these  facts  in  the  Senate  and  suggested  an 
appraisal  of  those  lands  that  were  embraced  in  the  forest 
reservations  on  top  of  snow-capped  mountains,  and 
proposed  that  the  exchange  be  made  according  to  value. 
If  they  exchanged  a  section  on  top  of  one  of  these 
mountains  that  wasn't  worth  over  a  cent  an  acre  for 
land  worth  ten  or  twenty  dollars  per  acre,  they  should 
not  get  acre  for  acre,  but  exact  value  after  appraisal; 
and  I  also  moved  that  all  operations  under  the  law  be 
suspended  pending  an  investigation  by  the  Interior  De 
partment.  The  Senate  passed  my  amendments,  but 
with  a  full  knowledge  of  all  the  facts,  showing  just 
what  frauds  had  been  practiced  and  how  they  were 
practiced;  the  House  refused  to  agree  to  the  Senate 
amendments,  and,  as  is  customary,  the  bill  was  thrown 
into  conference.  Cannon  was  chairman  of  the  Commit 
tee  on  Conference,  and  chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Appropriations  in  the  House,  and  he  insisted  upon 
standing  by  the  railroads  and  continuing  the  frauds, 
and  so  refused  to  agree  to  the  Senate  amendment,  but 
inserted  a  provision  that  thereafter  railroads  could  only 
exchange  for  surveyed  lands.  However,  as  the  law 

282 


provided  that,  when  three  settlers  in  a  township  peti 
tioned  for  the  survey  of  the  township  the  Government 
was  bound  to  make  the  survey  if  the  settlers  deposited 
money  enough  to  pay  for  the  work,  these  railroad 
thieves  would  send  three  men  into  a  township,  would 
have  them  file  three  homestead  entries,  and  then  make 
affidavit  that  they  were  residing  there  and  wanted  the 
township  surveyed ;  would  deposit  the  money  necessary 
— four  or  five  hundred  dollars  to  get  the  survey  made — 
and  then  the  railroads  would  locate  their  scrip  upon 
these  lands  all  over  the  township,  and  when  this  was 
done  the  three  men  would  move  on  and  locate  in  an 
other  township,  and  so  continue  the  fraud. 

Cannon  and  his  henchmen  in  the  House  and  Senate 
made  the  frauds  possible,  and  thus  enabled  the  rail 
roads  to  secure  many  millions  of  dollars  worth  of  the 
best  land  in  the  West  for  a  small  fraction  of  their  true 
value.  Thus  the  timber  and  mineral  wealth  of  the 
public  domain  was  turned  over  to  the  great  corpora 
tions  whose  handymen  were  maintained  in  Congress  for 
just  such  purposes. 

Cannonism  is  the  profession  of  selling  the  country 
to  the  rich  <so  that  they  may  be  enabled  to  grow  still 
richer  by  the  exploitation  of  the  poor. 

Another  instance  of  Cannonism  is  found  in  the 
armor-plate  scandals. 

For  several  years  the  Senate  of  the  United  States 
limited  the  price  to  be  paid  for  armor-plate.  The  armor- 
plate  manufacturers  were  in  a  trust.  Everybody  ad 
mitted  that.  There  were  only  two  plants  in  the  United 
States  that  could  manufacture  armor-plate.  One  was 
the  Carnegie  Steel  Company;  the  other  the  Bethlehem 
Steel  Company.  The  Carnegie  Steel  Works  and  Beth 
lehem  Steel  Works  were  in  a  combination,  and  each 
always  bid  for  just  half  of  what  the  Government 
wanted,  and  always  bid  the  same  price. 

The  Senate  passed  a  bill  limiting  the  price  of  armor- 
plate  to  $300  per  ton,  and  under  that  provision  no 
armor-plate  was  purchased  because  the  companies  re- 

283 


fused  to  sell  at  that  price.  Two  years  afterwards  the 
Senate  passed  an  amendment  to  the  Navy  Appropria 
tion  Bill  limiting  the  price  of  armor-plate  to  $425  per 
ton.  The  Carnegie  and  Bethlehem  companies  were 
asking  the  United  States  Government  $550  per  ton,  and 
were  selling  the  same  plate  to  the  Russian  Government 
for  $240  per  ton.  The  Senate  amendment  therefore 
provided  that  if  the  Secretary  could  not  buy  armor- 
plate  for  $425  per  ton,  the  Government  should  imme 
diately  commence  to  construct  an  armor-plate  plant 
and  make  its  own  armor-plate.  Joe  Cannon  was  chair 
man  of  the  Committee  on  Conference  in  the  House,  and 
he  absolutely  refused  to  submit  to  the  Senate  amend 
ment,  but  insisted  that  the  armor-plate  makers  should 
have  their  price,  although  they  were  in  a  trust  and  in 
collusion.  These  facts  were  well  known  to  him  and  to 
every  member  of  both  Houses. 

I  could  go  into  the  details  of  the  Congressional  Rec 
ord  with  regard  to  the  duty  on  white  pine.  The  Senate 
reduced  the  duty  from  $2,  the  price  fixed  by  the 
House,  to  $1  per  thousand.  Cannon  refused  to  agree 
to  the  Senate  amendment,  but  insisted  upon  $2,  which 
was  finally  allowed.  Under  it,  the  lumber  dealers  of 
the  whole  country  formed  a  combination  and  plundered 
the  consumers,  according  to  their  own  statement,  of 
thirty-five  millions  per  year. 

These  facts  were  known  to  Cannon  and  to  both 
Houses  when  this  duty  was  put  on  white  pine.  It  was 
well  known  that  the  duty  would  not  furnish  any  rev 
enue  to  the  Government  or  any  protection  to  the  build 
ing  up  of  an  infant  industry,  but  it  simply  put  $2  a 
thousand  into  the  pockets  of  the  owners  of  the  white 
pine  timber.  The  statement  of  Mr.  Winchester  and 
other  lumbermen  that  if  they  could  get  $2  on  lumber 
it  would  be  worth  thirty-five  million  dollars  each  year 
was  read  in  the  Senate.  And  yet  Mr.  Cannon  stood  pat 
on  the  tariff. 

When  the  tariff  was  revised,  it  was  revised  in  the 
interest  of  the  plutocracy  and  not  in  the  interest  of  the 

284 


people  of  the  United  States.  Cannon's  work  in  Con 
gress  was  done  in  the  interest  of  the  scheming  jobbery 
that  has  cursed  and  controlled  the  Republican  party 
for  the  last  thirty  years. 

I  have  used  Cannon's  name,  not  because  I  wish  to 
discredit  him  as  an  individual,  but  because  his  story  is 
so  typical  of  the  record  of  the  many  who  are  today 
holding  offices  of  trust  under  the  Government,  and 
faithfully  serving  the  American  plutocracy. 


285 


XX.     BUSINESS  AND  POLITICS 

At  a  number  of  points  in  this  discussion  I  have  sug 
gested  that  business  men  used  politicians  for  the  ad 
vancement  of  their  interests,  and  the  politicians  served 
the  business  interests  first  and  the  public  afterward. 
My  experience  showed  this  to  be  true  in  a  general  way, 
but  there  were  times  when  the  combination  of  busi 
ness  and  politics  rose  to  the  surface  of  public  events 
and  became  a  gross  and  scandalous  plundering  of  the 
public  treasury  in  the  interest  of  some  specially  favored 
business  group.  One  such  instance,  involving  the  sale 
of  Government  bonds  to  a  New  York  syndicate,  is  espe 
cially  deserving  of  notice. 

Grover  Cleveland,  a  New  York  state  lawyer,  was 
closely  associated  with  the  big  business  interests  be 
fore  he  became  President  of  the  United  States.  During 
his  second  term  as  President,  the  gold  reserve  in  the 
public  treasury  fell  to  a  very  low  point.  To  meet  this 
emergency,  the  President,  through  Carlisle,  his  Secre 
tary  of  the  Treasury,  issued  bonds  which  were  to  be 
exchanged  for  gold  and  thus  keep  up  the  Federal  gold 
reserve. 

The  Wilson  Tariff  Bill  was  passed  on  August  14,  1894, 
for  the  purpose  of  saving  the  situation,  but  the  mis 
chief  had  been  done.  On  November  14,  1894,  the  Sec 
retary  of  the  Treasury  issued  a  call  for  $50,000,000 
five  per  cent,  ten-year  bonds  under  the  Resumption  Act 

The  bonds  sold  in  January,  1894,  had  been  absorbed 
at  home.  The  Stewart  syndicate,  which  handled  these 
bonds,  had  been  treated  fairly  by  the  Government,  and 
there  was  a  disposition  on  the  part  of  these  bankers 
freely  to  subscribe  for  the  new  issue. 

Mr.  Stewart  and  Mr.  J.  P.  Morgan  visited  Washing 
ton  in  the  interest  of  the  syndicate,  and  it  is  repre 
sented,  and  generally  believed,  that  Mr.  Stewart,  at 
least,  had  a  distinct  understanding  with  the  President 
and  with  Mr.  Carlisle  that  nothing  would  be  done  by 
the  administration  in  any  way  whatever  to  interfere 

286 


with  the  marketing  of  the  bonds.  These  bankers, 
therefore,  went  back  to  New  York  and  forwarded  a 
bid  for  the  whole  amount  of  the  bonds  at  $117. 

The  total  offers  for  these  $50,000,000  of  bonds 
amounted  to  $58,500,000.  The  award  was  made  to  the 
Stewart  syndicate  on  the  understanding  that  the  gold 
to  be  paid  for  the  bonds  would  not  be  taken  from  the 
treasury.  Payment  for  the  bonds  was  made  promptly, 
$20,000,000  having  been  turned  into  the  Sub-Treasury 
by  the  end  of  November. 

The  syndicate  immediately  arranged  to  sell  the  bonds 
they  had  bought,  and  offered  a  lot  of  $5,000,000  at  119. 
It  is  believed  that  this  amount  was  .sold  at  the  price 
named,  but,  before  they  had  an  opportunity  to  dispose 
of  any  additional  bonds,  the  President's  message  and 
the  report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  recom 
mending  changes  in  the  currency  law  effectually 
stopped  the  marketing  of  Government  bonds. 

This  act,  which  was  very  apparently  one  of  bad  faith 
on  the  part  of  the  administration,  resulted  in  the  disso 
lution  of  the  syndicate  and  a  great  depression  in  the 
prices  of  bonds.  When  it  came  to  subsequent  bond 
issues,  the  administration  turned  over  the  bonds  to 
certain  financial  groups  in  New  York  at  a  price  far 
below  their  true  value  and  thus  enabled  the  new  syndi 
cate  to  make  millions  of  dollars  without  taking  any 
risk,  investing  any  capital  or  importing  any  gold. 

Senator  Peffer,  of  Kansas,  introduced  a  resolution  to 
investigate  the  Cleveland  bond  sales.  No  sooner  had 
this  resolution  appeared  than  David  Bennett  Hill,  of 
New  York,  began  a  fight  to  prevent  its  passage.  In  the 
course  of  this  struggle  he  attacked  everyone  that  advo 
cated  it,  and  defended  the  bond  sales  with  great  vigor. 

I  would  not  mention  Senator  Hill  in  this  connection 
were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  his  brief  career  is  such  a 
typical  illustration  of  the  relation  between  business  and 
politics. 

Hill  (a  Democrat)  came  to  the  Senate  with  the  repu 
tation  of  being  a  lawyer  of  decided  ability,  and  a  polit- 

287 


ical  manipulator  of  some  cunning  and  skill,  having 
served  as  Governor  of  the  state  of  New  York.*  He 
remained  in  the  Senate  only  one  term,  for,  at  the  end  of 
his  six  years,  Tom  Platt — Boss  Platt,  as  he  was  called — 
took  Hill's  place. 

Among  the  private  jobs  which  Hill  undertook  to  put 
through  was  an  amendment  to  the  Indian  Appropria 
tion  Bill,  which  practically  confiscated  the  reservation 
of  the  Seneca  Indians.  He  made  the  effort  to  rob  the 
Indians  of  their  homes  under  the  guise  of  an  old  agree 
ment  of  some  sort  with  the  Ogden  Land  Company,  by 
offering  an  amendment  to  the  Indian  bill,  in  which  it 
was  provided  that  $300,000  should  be  paid  to  the  Ogden 
Land  Company  out  of  the  sale  of  the  land  of  the  reser 
vation.  He  was  exceedingly  persistent,  and  offered  this 
amendment  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate.  The  amend 
ment  was  clearly  subject  to  a  point  of  order  and,  after 
a  considerable  discussion,  I  stated  in  the  Senate  that 
there  was  present  a  lobby  of  adventurers  who  were 
interested  in  this  claim,  and  that  the  only  result  would 
be  that  they  would  divide  this  money  among  them ;  and 
I  finally  told  Hill  that,  unless  he  accepted  my  amend 
ment  which  specifically  provided  that  the  lands  of  the 
Indians  of  New  York  should  not  be  sold  or  any  part  of 


*  Some  idea  of  Hill's  position  in  New  York  State  politics 
may  be  gained  from  the  following  article  appearing  in  a  Demo 
cratic  paper  (The  Times),  February  23rd,  1896: 

"Senator  Hill  is  a  Democratic  statesman  of  high  degree,  as 
statesmen  go  in  that  party.  His  term  as  senator  will  close  next 
March  and,  during  his  nearly  six  years  in  the  Senate,  he  has 
been  responsible  for  but  one  bill,  and  that  has  not  yet  become 
a  law.  although  it  has  passed  the  Senate  and  had  been  favorably 
reported  from  the  House  Committee  on  Interstate  and  Foreign 
Commerce.  And  what  think  you  is  this  great  and  momentous 
piece  of  legislation  that  is  to  be  the  only  rem  nder  to  posterity 
— that  is,  if  it  becomes  a  law — that  David  B.  Hill  served  six 
years  in  the  Senate?  It  authorizes  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury  to  detail  a  revenue  cutter  to  control  excursion  and  other 
boats  which  attend  yacht  races.  Now,  doesn't  that  prove  the 
statesmanship  of  Hill?" 

288 


them,  or  any  of  their  property  whatever  appropriated 
for  the  purpose  of  paying  this  claim,  I  would  insist  upon 
a  point  of  order  and  let  it  go  to  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives  for  their  consideration.  He  accepted  the 
amendment  and  it  was  adopted  in  conference.  After 
wards,  the  Indians  in  council  passed  a  resolution  thank 
ing  me  for  preventing  Hill  from  plundering  them  from 
their  property.f 

After  a  careful  study  of  the  facts  and  an  investiga 
tion  of  the  circumstances  surrounding  the  Cleveland 
bond  sales,  I  made  a  series  of  charges  against  the  ad 
ministration.  (May  5,  1896,  Cong.  Record.) 

I  charged  that  the  President,  through  the  Treasury 
officials,  sold  sixty-two  millions  of  bonds  at  private  sale 
for  $104%  to  his  former  clients,  and  that  on  the  day 
of  such  sale  the  market  price  of  these  bonds,  as  quoted 
in  the  New  York  papers,  was  $117. 


f  The  following  is  a  copy  of  the  Resolution  of  the  New 
York  Indians: 

"At  a  council  of  the  Seneca  Nat'on  of  New  York  Indians, 
assembled  at  the  Council  Home  at  Cold  Springs,  on  the  Alle 
gheny  Reservation,  on  the  twelfth  day  of  April,  in  the  year  one 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  ninety-five,  the  following  resolu 
tion  was  adopted: 

"RESOLVED:  That  we  s.'ncerely  tender  our  thanks  to 
the  Honorable  Richard  F.  Pettigrew,  of  Sioux  Falls,  South 
Dakota,  United  States  Senator,  for  his  valuable  services  ren 
dered  to  our  delegates  while  on  their  visit  to  the  United  States 
Congress  at  Washington,  D.  C.,  and  for  the  deep  interest  he 
has  taken  in  the  welfare  of  his  red  brethren  in  opposing  the 
passage  of  the  amendment  to  the  Indian  Appropriation  Bill 
relative  to  the  claims  of  the  so-called  Ogden  Land  Company 
to  the  lands  of  the  Senecas  on  the  Cataraugus  Reservations. 

"A  true  copy. 

"William  C.  Hoag, 
President,  Seneca  Nations  of  Indians. 

"Alfred  L.  Jimson, 
Clerk,  Seneca  Nation  of  Indians. 
"Great  Seal  of  the  Seneca 
Nation  of  New  York,  1876." 

289 


I  charged  that  the  purchaser  and  others  associated 
with  them,  the  plutocrats  and  autocrats  of  New  York, 
sold  these  bonds  to  the  public  in  a  short  time  at  a  profit 
of  $8,418,000. 

I  charged  that  the  syndicate  was  to  pay  in  gold  for 
these  bonds  sixty-two  million  dollars,  and  that  one-half 
of  the  gold  was  to  be  imported  and  that  part  of  the  con 
tract  requiring  the  gold  to  be  imported  was  not  carried 
out  and  that  less  than  fifteen  millions  of  gold  was  im 
ported. 

I  charged  that  a  secret  agreement  was  made  with 
the  syndicate  by  which  they  were  released  from  im 
porting  the  gold  and  allowed  to  sell  exchange  against 
the  gold  received  for  the  bonds  in  England  to  the  great 
profit  and  advantage  of  the  syndicate. 

I  charged  that  negotiations  were  completed  to  sell 
this  same  syndicate  one  hundred  millions  of  bonds  at 
$104%  and  it  would  have  been  carried  out  but  for  the 
protests  of  the  public. 

I  charged  that  after  the  public  and  the  Senate  had 
protested  against  the  sale  of  any  more  bonds  at  private 
sale,  the  administration  delayed  action  until  the  syndi 
cate  of  bankers  could  get  together  and  corner  the  gold 
so  that  the  public  could  not  bid,  and  then  the  President 
offered  the  bonds  at  a  pretended  public  sale,  and  that 
the  bonds  were  sold  at  about  $111,  mostly  to  the  syndi 
cate,  while,  if  there  had  been  an  honest  effort  before 
the  gold  had  been  cornered  they  would  have  brought 
$117  at  least. 

I  charged  that  about  five  millions  of  the  bonds  were 
not  taken  by  the  bidders  and  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  could  have  sold  these  bonds  for  $117,  but  that 
he  gave  them  to  Morgan  &  Company  for  $110.68,  caus 
ing  a  loss  to  the  Treasury  of  several  hundred  thousand 
dollars. 

I  had  summarized  the  matter,  as  I  understood  it,  in 
the  following  words  (April  29,  1896,  Cong.  Record, 
p.  5004) : 

"Mr.  President,  the  plain  statement  of  the  facts  con- 

290 


nected  with  the  several  bond  issues  by  the  present  ad 
ministration  constitutes  an  arraignment  which  no  elo 
quence  could  make  stronger.  First,  there  was  the 
attack  upon  the  credit  of  the  United  States  by  the 
inspired  object  lesson  from  the  banks  of  New  York; 
then  the  extra  session  of  the  Fifty-third  Congress; 
then  the  passage  of  the  Wilson  tariff  for  a  deficit;  the 
further  depreciation  of  the  national  credit  by  the  dem 
onstration  that  the  revenues  were  not  equal  to  the 
necessary  expenditures  of  the  Government;  then  the 
endless  chain— the  first  bond  issue  of  $50,000,000  of 
five  per  cent  ten-year  bonds  at  a  fixed  price  of  $117.077 ; 
the  depreciation  of  the  market  value  of  these  bonds  by 
the  recommendation  to  Congress  that  a  bill  be  passed 
discontinuing  the  use  of  them  as  a  basis  of  bank-note 
circulation ;  then  the  secret  contract  with  the  Belmont- 
Morgan  syndicate  for  the  sale  of  $62,000,000  of  thirty- 
year  four  per  cent  bonds  at  $104%,  which  bonds  were 
quoted  last  December  at  121 ;  finally  the  attempt  to  give 
to  the  Morgan  syndicate  the  last  loan  of  $100,000,000 
at  the  same  figure,  and  the  actual  award  to  them  at 
their  bid  of  $110.6877  of  about  $5,000,000  upon  which 
default  was  made  in  payment,  for  which  other  parties 
offered  116,  and  which  were  quoted  in  open  market  at 
a  higher  price. 

"Upon  this  record,  Mr.  President,  the  administration 
and  the  Democratic  party  must  go  before  the  people 
next  November,  and  the  verdict  of  the  people  will  be 
even  more  emphatic  in  condemnation  than  it  was  in 
1894  and  in  1895." 

Nor  was  I  alone  in  making  a  fight  to  have  the  facts 
regarding  this  infamous  transaction  brought  to  light. 
A  number  of  western  senators,  backed  by  Populist  con 
stituencies,  were  as  eager  as  I  was  to  have  the  facts 
placed  before  the  country.  And  in  their  case,  as  well 
as  in  mine,  it  was  David  Bennett  Hill  that  "talked  back." 

In  the  debate  over  the  Seneca  Indian  Reservation  I 
had  characterized  the  claim  which  Hill  was  supporting 
as  robbery.  This  had  very  much  offended  Mr.  Hill, 

291 


who  waited  about  three  months  and,  in  the  meantime, 
having  sent  to  Dakota  for  information,  he  secured  some 
Sioux  Falls  newspapers  containing  editorials  by  J.  Tom- 
linson,  Jr.,  attacking  me  personally  and  politically  in 
the  most  outrageous  manner.  In  the  course  of  a  speech 
on  the  Cleveland  bond  sales  Hill  read  these  editorials 
into  the  record.  After  reading  several  of  the  editorials 
himself,  he  asked  the  clerk  to  do  the  reading.  As  the 
clerk  read,  Hill  stopped  him  frequently  with  such  ex 
clamations  as  "What's  that?  Read  that  over."  By 
this  trick  he  had  each  abusive  statement  read  twice. 
Throughout  the  episode  he  behaved  like  an  endman  in 
a  minstrel  show. 

I  had  said  in  my  speech  in  regard  to  the  bond  sales 
that  the  President  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
were  evidently  enriching  their  favorites,  for  the  pur 
chasers  of  these  bonds  were  all  prominent  New  York 
people,  and  they  cornered  all  the  gold  there  was  in  the 
country,  and  were  giving  for  the  bonds  from  ten  to  fif 
teen  per  cent  less  on  the  dollar  than  they  would  sell  for 
in  the  open  market,  and  I  charged  that  they  had  thus 
made  about  eighteen  millions  of  dollars,  and  that  it 
looked  like  a  very  disreputable  and  dishonest  job.  And 
so,  when  Hill  had  finished  his  attack  upon  me  by  read 
ing  these  editorials,  I  simply  arose  and  said  that  I  had 
charged  the  administration  and  the  financiers  of  New 
York  with  acting  in  collusion  to  plunder  the  people  of 
the  United  States  in  connection  with  this  bond  transac 
tion,  and  that  Mr.  Hill  seemed  to  think  that  the  com 
plete  answer  to  charges  was  to  read  scurrilous  political 
editorials  with  regard  to  myself.  I  said  if  he  was  sat 
isfied  with  the  answer  I  was  entirely  satisfied,  and  that 
Hill  had  honored  me  by  this  attack  in  the  only  way  he 
could  honor  anybody — he  had  convinced  the  Senate  and 
the  country  that  we  had  nothing  in  common. 

Senator  Peffer's  resolution  to  appoint  a  special  com 
mittee  to  investigate  the  bond  sale  was  finally  amended 
to  request  the  Committee  on  Finance  of  the  Senate  to 
make  the  investigation  through  a  sub-committee  of 

292 


four  senators,  that  is,  Harris  of  Tennessee,  Walthall  of 
Mississippi,  Vest  of  Missouri  and  Platt  of  Connecticut, 
all  lawyers,  three  of  them  Democrats  and  in  .sympathy 
with  the  administration.  This  committee  made  some 
investigation,  but  never  made  a  report  to  the  Senate. 

Who  were  the  chief  actors  in  this  scandalous  bond 
transaction  ?  First,  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
Grover  Cleveland,  a  Buffalo  lawyer;  second,  John  Car 
lisle,  a  lawyer  from  Kentucky,  who  had  been  a  great 
advocate  of  bi-metallism  and  who  sold  his  convictions 
in  order  to  get  Cleveland  to  appoint  him  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury;  David  Bennett  Hill,  a  lawyer  from  New 
York,  who  was  the  champion  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate ; 
John  Sherman,  a  Republican  and  a  lawyer  from  Ohio. 
During  the  twelve  years  that  I  was  in  the  Senate,  two- 
thirds  of  both  Houses  of  Congress  were  lawyers  and 
the  Presidents  were  all  lawyers — Harrison,  Cleveland 
and  McKinley.  The  consequence  was  that  all  legisla 
tion  was  framed  in  the  interests  of  the  exploiters  of 
the  people  of  the  United  States,  whether  it  dealt  with 
bond  sales,  armor-plate,  railway  mail  pay,  land  grants 
of  the  public  domain,  ship  bounties — the  rights  and  in 
terests  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  were  never 
considered.  In  fact,  we  have  become  a  government  ad 
ministered  by  lawyers  who  were  acting  as  the  attorneys 
and  representatives  of  the  great  exploiting  combina 
tions  of  banks,  railroads  and  industries. 

I  have  gone  into  the  question  of  these  bond  sales 
because  they  illustrate  one  of  the  methods  by  which  the 
people  of  the  United  States  are  exploited  in  the  inter 
ests  of  the  capitalists.  Several  millionaires  were  made 
as  the  result  of  the  transaction  and  the  American  people 
footed  the  bill.  It  was  a  comparatively  small  deal — 
probably  thirty  millions  were  made  out  of  it — but  it 
illustrates  very  well  the  operations  of  the  system,  and 
the  way  the  machinery  of  government  is  manipulated 
to  accumulate  the  wealth  of  the  country  in  the  hands 
of  the  few. 


293 


XXI.     A  LOST  ELECTION 

Before  leaving  the  subject  of  American  political  life 
and  its  control  by  big  business,  I  want  to  refer  to  one 
more  incident — the  election  that  cost  me  my  place  in 
the  United  States  Senate. 

Mark  Hanna  managed  the  campaign  of  1900  and 
after  McKinley  took  office  Hanna  managed  the  Presi 
dent  even  more  successfully  than  he  had  managed  the 
campaign.  Through  ten  strenuous  years  I  had  fought 
Hanna  and  all  that  he  stood  for.  I  had  opposed  him  on 
the  gold  standard  issue ;  I  had  led  the  opposition  to  the 
schemes  of  the  imperialists  for  annexing  Hawaii ;  I  had 
opposed  the  acquisition  of  the  Philippines  and  the  other 
Spanish  colonies.  I  had  opposed  the  trusts,  the  extor 
tion  of  the  railroads,  the  armor  plate  thieves,  and 
had  tried  to  save  the  public  domain  for  the  people. 
Consequently,  when  it  came  to  the  election  of  1900, 
Mark  Hanna  spared  no  pains  to  insure  my  elimination 
from  public  life. 

The  incident  which  inspired  Hanna  with  a  particu 
larly  strong  desire  to  have  me  out  of  the  way  arose  out 
of  a  charge  concerning  a  campaign  contribution  to  the 
Republican  party. 

In  1895  I  went  to  Europe  and  stayed  several  months. 
I  returned  on  the  American  Line  steamship  "St  Louis" 
in  company  with  Cramp,  the  shipbuilder  and  owner  of 
the  line  of  ships.  During  the  voyage  I  became  well 
acquainted  with  Mr.  Cramp  and  we  talked  a  great  deal 
together. 

One  day  he  told  me  that  he  had  paid  $400,000  to  Tom 
Carter,  chairman  of  the  Republican  National  Commit 
tee,  to  re-elect  Harrison  in  1892.  He  said  that  he  was 
assured  by  Carter  that  his  $400,000  would  certainly 
elect  Harrison.  Carter  told  him  where  he  was  going 
to  spend  the  money,  and  that  he  "could  get  it  back  out 
of  building  ships  for  the  Government  after  Harrison 
was  elected."  "Harrison  was  defeated,"  said  Cramp, 
"and  I  lost  my  money.  I  have  since  looked  the  matter 

294 


up  and  have  found  that  Mr.  Carter  did  not  spend  the 
money  where  he  said  he  would  .spend  it,  and  I  feel  that 
I  am  a  victim  of  misrepresentation." 

Mr.  Cramp  wanted  to  know  of  me  how  he  could  re 
cover  the  $400,000,  and  I  told  him  I  knew  of  no  way 
except  to  make  terms  with  the  next  administration  and 
increase  his  contribution. 

In  December,  when  the  Senate  had  convened,  I  went 
one  day  over  to  Tom  Carter's  seat  and  told  him  what 
Cramp  had  said  to  me.  Carter  smiled  and  replied, 
"Well,  we  did  hit  the  old  man  pretty  hard." 

Some  time  afterward,  in  a  discussion  with  regard  to 
the  building  of  an  armor-plate  factory,  I  told  on  the 
floor  of  the  Senate  what  Cramp  had  said  to  me  about 
the  $400,000.  Carter,  ex-chairman  of  the  Republican 
National  Committee,  and  Mark  Hanna,  then  chairman 
of  the  committee,  were  both  in  their  .seats,  but  neither 
of  them  made  any  reply  or  took  any  notice  of  my  state 
ment.  Some  time  afterwards  Senator  Bacon,  of  Georgia, 
interrupted  a  speech  by  Senator  Hanna  to  say : 

Mr.  BACON:  "In  this  connection  I  want  to  call  the 
attention  of  the  Senate  to  the  most  remarkable  thing 
I  ever  heard  and  the  most  remarkable  thing  I  ever  saw 
in  the  Senate.  I  fancy  that  the  country  has  never  been 
the  witness  to  what  we  saw  and  heard  in  this  chamber 
a  few  days  ago. 

"A  senator  in  his  place  in  this  chamber  stated  as  a 
fact  that  the  manufacturer  of  ships,  a  prominent  and 
the  most  prominent  firm  engaged  in  the  manufacture 
of  warships  for  the  Government,  had  stated  that  in 
1892  he  was  approached  by  the  officers  of  the  Republi 
can  party  and  induced  to  give  $400,000  to  the  campaign 
fund  of  that  party  upon  the  assurance  that  the  money 
would  be  returned  to  him  or  made  good  to  him  in  the 
contracts  which  he  should  have  in  the  building  of  war 
ships. 

"Now,  Mr.  President,  the  remarkable  thing  that  I 
want  to  call  the  attention  of  the  Senate  to  is  this:  I 
heard  that  statement.  I  did  not  doubt  that  it  would 

295 


then  and  there  be  promptly  challenged.  I  did  not  be 
lieve  that  such  a  statement  could  be  made  in  the  Sen 
ate  of  the  United  States  in  the  presence  of  the  leaders 
of  the  Republican  party  and  no  one  deny  it  or  call  it 
in  question. 

"Now,  that  was  not  made  in  a  thin  Senate;  it  was 
made  in  a  full  Senate.  It  was  made  when  the  chair 
man  of  the  National  Committee  of  the  Republican 
party  in  the  campaign  of  1892  was  in  his  seat  and  heard 
it,  as  well  as  the  chairman  of  the  Republican  National 
Committee  at  the  time,  Mr.  Hannah,  and  yet  no  one 
either  challenged  it  or  denied  it. 

"Mr.  President,  in  the  absence  of  such  a  challenge 
and  such  a  denial,  the  country  must  believe  it  is  true." 

And  Mr.  Hanna  made  the  following  reply : 

Mr.  HANNA:    "Mr.  President 

THE  PRESIDING  OFFICER:  "Does  the  Senator 
from  Georgia  yield  to  the  Senator  from  Ohio  ?" 

Mr.  BACON:  "I  do,  with  pleasure." 

Mr.  HANNA :  "The  Senator  alludes  to  the  fact  that 
the  chairman  of  the  Republican  Committee  was  in  his 
seat  and  did  not  deny  the  statement  made." 

Mr.  BACON:  "If  I  am  incorrect  in  that,  I  certainly 
made  it  in  good  faith.  I  think  I  saw  the  Senator  pres 
ent." 

Mr.  HANNA:  "If  I  undertook  to  reply  to  all  such 
.statements  made  upon  this  floor,  I  would  occupy  more 
time  than  the  Senator  from  Georgia  does  in  the  Senate. 
I  considered  it  unworthy  of  notice  and  declined  to  dig 
nify  it  by  a  reply." 

It  may  well  be  noticed  that  Mr.  Hanna  did  not  under 
take  to  deny  my  statement  and  for  this  reason :  Imme 
diately  after  I  had  made  the  statement  in  the  Senate 
several  of  the  prominent  Republican  members  of  the 
Senate  and  a  number  of  newspaper  men  went  to  see 
Cramp,  and  Cramp  told  them  that  what  I  had  said  was 
true;  that  he  did  tell  me  that  he  made  a  contribution 
of  over  four  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  Harrison's 
campaign ;  that  he  made  it  upon  the  misrepresentations 

296 


of  Tom  Carter ;  that  he  consulted  with  me  as  to  how  to 
get  the  money  back;  that  he  had  not  told  it  to  me  in 
confidence,  but  for  the  purpose  of  securing  my  assis 
tance  in  getting  the  money  returned  to  him.  One  of 
the  newspaper  men  reported  what  Cramp  said.  Of 
course,  Cramp's  statement  to  these  Senators  and  news 
paper  men  left  the  Republicans  where  it  was  impossible 
for  them  to  meet  my  charge  except  by  ignoring  it. 

After  Hanna  had  said  that  if  he  answered  such 
statements  he  would  take  more  of  the  Senate's  time 
than  was  occupied  by  the  Senator  from  Georgia,  and 
that  the  source  from  which  the  report  came  was  un 
worthy  of  notice,  I  rose  and  said  that  perhaps  I  had 
something  that  would  be  of  interest  to  the  great  man 
from  Ohio  and  that  did  come  from  a  source  worthy  of 
his  notice.  I  thereupon  stated  to  the  Senate  that  I  had 
in  my  hand  a  petition  from  the  Ohio  State  Senate, 
signed  by  four  out  of  the  five  members  of  the  Commit 
tee  on  Elections  of  the  Ohio  State  Senate,  asking  the 
United  States  Senate  to  investigate  the  election  of  Mr. 
Hanna  to  that  body.  I  said  that  this  petition  charged 
that  Mr.  Hanna,  to  .secure  his  election  to  the  United 
States  Senate,  had  purchased  the  votes  of  two  members 
of  the  Ohio  Legislature  from  the  city  of  Cincinnati; 
that  the  purchasing  was  done  by  Hanna  agents  under 
Hanna's  direction ;  that  the  sum  of  ten  thousand  dollars 
had  been  paid  to  one  of  the  legislators ;  and  I  said  that 
this  petition  had  been  referred  to  the  Committee  on 
Elections  to  the  United  States  Senate.  After  I  called  the 
attention  of  the  Senate  and  the  country  to  this  venal 
and  corrupt  practice  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Hanna  in  pur 
chasing  his  seat  on  the  Senate,  the  majority  of  the 
Senate  Committee  on  Elections  made  a  report  and 
stated  that,  as  no  official  person  came  from  the  Ohio 
legislature  to  present  and  to  prosecute  the  case  against 
Mr.  Hanna  before  the  Committee  on  Elections,  they 
had  concluded  not  to  look  into  the  matter.  But  the 
minority  of  the  Committee  on  Privileges  and  Elections 
in  the  Senate  made  the  following  report : 

297 


"We  cannot  concur  in  the  report  of  the  majority  of 
the  Committee  on  Privileges  and  Elections  in  the  mat 
ter  of  the  report  of  the  committee  appointed  by  the 
Senate  of  the  State  of  Ohio  to  investigate  the  charges 
of  bribery  in  the  election  of  the  Hon.  M.  A.  Hanna  to 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States. 

"The  charge  is  that  early  in  January,  1898,  an  at 
tempt  was  made  by  H.  H.  Boyce  and  others  to  bribe 
John  C.  Otis,  a  member  of  the  House  of  Representa 
tives  of  the  General  Assembly  of  the  State  of  Ohio  to 
vote  for  Marcus  A.  Hanna  for  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States." 

Among  other  things,  the  majority  of  the  committee 
had  reported: 

"Moreover,  it  seems  clear  to  this  committee  that  it 
would  not  be  justified  in  recommending  any  action  to  be 
taken  by  the  Senate  without  further  testimony  to  be 
taken  by  the  committee.  The  question  whether  addi 
tional  evidence  should  be  taken  has  been  the  only  diffi 
cult  question  which  the  committee  has  considered.  It 
is  clear  that  Mr.  Otis  never  had  any  intention  of  yield 
ing  to  bribery.  He  encouraged  Mr.  Boyce  by  the  advice 
of  others  only  in  order  to  entrap  him.  Then  he  care 
fully  withdrew  and  substituted  his  attorney,  Mr.  Camp 
bell,  to  continue  the  negotiations.  Mr.  Campbell  labored 
to  induce  Mr.  Boyce  to  offer  money  and,  finally,  as  he 
says,  obtained  $1,750  from  him  as  part  payment 
on  $3,500  to  be  paid  for  Mr.  Otis'  vote  for  Mr.  Hanna, 
leaving  $6,500  to  be  paid  if  Mr.  Hanna  was  elected.  At 
this  point,  public  exposure,  through  Mr.  Otis,  Mr.  Camp 
bell  and  their  associates,  took  place,  Mr.  Boyce  disap 
peared,  and  the  incident  was  closed. 

"That  Mr.  Boyce,  operating  in  Cincinnati,  where  Mr. 
Otis  lives,  has  relations  with  Mr.  Hanna's  representa 
tives  at  Columbus,  the  state  capital,  the  State  Commit 
tee  undertook  to  prove  by  the  evidence  of  various  de 
tectives,  professional  and  amateur,  who  listened  at  tel 
ephone  wires  and  shadowed  Mr.  Boyce,  Mr.  Hollenbeck 
and  others.  The  effort  of  the  committee  was  carefully 

298 


and  skilfully  made.  It  was  not  wholly  devoid  of  re 
sults;  it  raises  pregnant  suspicions  that  Mr.  Hanna's 
representatives  at  Columbus  knew  what  Mr.  Boyce  was 
doing.  But  this  whole  line  of  inquiry  would  require 
verification  by  testimony  to  be  taken  by  the  Commit 
tee  on  Privileges  and  Elections  before  that  committee 
would  be  willing  to  found  conclusions  thereon." 

The  quotation  is  from  the  report  of  the  majority  of 
the  committee.  Now  we  will  see  what  the  minority 
further  say: 

"The  attempt  on  the  part  of  Boyce  to  buy  Otis'  vote 
for  Mr.  Hanna  is  clearly  proven  by  Campbell  who,  from 
his  testimony,  seems  to  have  been  a  lawyer  of  large 
practice.  One  thousand  seven  hundred  and  fifty  dol 
lars  was  paid  in  cash  by  Boyce  to  Campbell  as  attorney 
for  Otis.  Boyce  agreed  to  pay  $1,750  more  when  Otis 
reached  Columbus,  and  a  balance  of  $6,500  if  Mr. 
Hanna  was  elected.  .  .  . 

"We  think  that  the  evidence  to  which  we  have  al 
ready  referred,  standing  as  it  does  uncontradicted  and 
unexplained,  shows  that  certain  of  Mr.  Hanna's  man 
agers  at  Columbus  not  only  knew  the  purposes  which 
Boyce  had  in  view  in  Cincinnati,  but  also  that  they 
aided,  abetted,  and  advised  him  in  carrying  out  these 
purposes,  and  that  this  .state  of  affairs  existed  while 
Mr.  Hanna  was  present  at  his  headquarters.  .  .  . 

"First,  That  many  of  the  witnesses,  whose  testimony 
apparently  would  have  thrown  much  light  upon  the 
subject  under  inquiry,  denied  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
the  committee  and  refused  to  testify  under  the  advice 
of  counsel,  who  stated  that  they  represented  the  inter 
ests  of  Majors  Rathbone  and  Dick  and  Senator  Hanna; 
and, 

"Second,  That  Mr.  Hanna  and  his  representatives 
had  subpoenas. 

"The  report  of  the  majority  says  they  'do  not  doubt 
that  if  facts  appeared  from  the  report  of  the  commit 
tee  of  the  State  Senate  requiring  the  United  States 
Senate,  out  of  a  proper  regard  for  its  own  reputation, 

299 


to  take  further  testimony  concerning  Mr.  Hanna's  elec 
tion,  it  would  be  the  duty  of  the  Senate  to  proceed 
without  waiting  for  further  prosecution  of  the  case 
coming  from  residents  of  the  state  of  Ohio/ 

"We  think  such  facts  do  appear  from  the  report  of 
the  committee  of  the  State  Senate,  and  that  this  body 
should  direct  further  inquiry  and  investigation  to  be 
made." 

The  minority  who  signed  this  report  was  composed 
of  Senators  Tubley,  Pettus  and  Caffery. 

After  reading  this  and  much  more  of  the  same  kind 
of  evidence  to  the  Senate,  I  said : 

"Mr.  President,  these  things  are  known  to  the  Amer 
ican  people.  It  will  not  do  for  the  Senator  from  Ohio 
to  stand  up  here  and  say  that  charges  of  this  ,sort — if 
he  answered  all  that  were  made  he  could  not  do  much 
else — are  unworthy  of  consideration  or  notice.  From  the 
Senate  of  his  own  state  come  these  charges;  from  a 
minority  of  the  committee  of  this  body  come  these 
charges,  and  yet  the  Senator  from  Ohio  says  they  are 
unworthy  of  his  notice — that  they  are  little  things." 

This  report  of  the  Senate  Committee  is  rather  a  re 
markable  document;  all  who  signed  the  majority  re 
port  were  Republicans  and  Mark  Hanna  was  chairman 
of  the  Republican  National  Committee,  and  the  general 
factotum  of  the  whole  Republican  party.  He  repre 
sented  the  interests  of  great  business  and  was  a  busi 
ness  man.  He  had  collected  vast  sums  of  money  to 
corrupt  the  voters  of  this  country  and  elect  McKinley 
in  1896.  So  accustomed  had  the  Republicans  of  the 
Senate  become  to  the  use  of  money  that  it  did  not  dis 
turb  them  at  all  that  Mr.  Hanna  had  purchased  his  seat 
in  that  body.  The  facts  which  I  presented  did  not  cause 
even  a  ripple  of  interest,  and  the  Senators  did  not  seem 
to  care  if  the  public  knew  all  about  it.  During  the  quar 
ter-century  that  has  elapsed  since  this  episode  the 
purchase  of  seats  in  the  Senate  has  become  so  common 
that  it  attracts  no  public  attention.  Why  should  it 
when  even  the  presidency  of  the  United  States  is  put 

300 


up  at  auction  in  the  Republican  National  Convention 
and  knocked  down  to  the  highest  bidder? 

Mr.  Hanna  was  furious  at  wrhat  I  had  said  about  him 
and  he  determined  that  he  would  have  revenge!  My 
term  in  the  Senate  would  expire  in  1901,  and  Mark 
Hanna  made  up  his  mind  to  prevent  my  re-election. 

I  was  not  running  as  a  stalwart  Republican  in  the 
election  of  1900,  for  I  had  walked  out  of  the  St.  Louis 
Republican  Convention  in  1896.  I  was  running  as  a 
Bryanite  on  the  Bryan  Free  Silver  Republican  ticket 
in  South  Dakota.  Mr.  Hanna  raised  a  vast  sum  of 
money  to  corrupt  the  voters  of  South  Dakota,  and  put 
in  charge  of  the  work  Henry  Payne,  of  Milwaukee,  one 
of  the  well-known  hangers-on  of  every  Republican  cam 
paign. 

Payne  came  out  to  South  Dakota  with  $30,000 
and  in  conjunction  with  the  Republican  organization 
of  the  state  and  the  help  of  A.  B.  Kittridge,  a  Sioux 
Falls  lawyer,  afterwards  a  Republican  United  States 
Senator,  they  polled  the  state  of  South  Dakota  on 
the  probability  of  my  election.  This  task  was  not  a 
great  one.  The  total  population  of  the  state  at  that 
time  was  only  401,570,  with  a  total  vote  in  1900  of 
96,124.  Payne  sent  out  200  teams  and  visited  every 
farmer  and  voter  in  the  state.  When  they  had  finish 
ed  the  canvass  they  found  that  I  had  the  state  by 
several  thousand  majority. 

This  greatly  alarmed  Mr.  Hanna  and  the  Repub 
lican  campaign  managers,  for  they  considered  it  of 
great  political  importance  to  get  rid  of  me. 

Senator  Allison,  of  Iowa,  came  to  Dakota  to  see 
how  the  campaign  was  going  on.  He  made  no 
speeches,  but  simply  looked  over  the  possibilities  of 
eliminating  me  from  public  life.  He  was  being  en 
tertained  in  my  home  town,  when  C.  C.  Bailey,  a 
prominent  attorney,  asked  him  about  me.  Allison 
replied  that  I  had  the  greatest  power  for  making 
trouble  of  any  man  he  ever  knew,  and  that  the  in- 

301 


terests  of  the  party  and  the  people  of  this  country 
would  be  best  served  by  getting  me  out  of  the  Senate. 

Senator  Nelson  of  Minnesota  also  came  to  South 
Dakota  and  canvassed  the  State  and  in  his  speeches 
said  Mr.  Pettigrew  should  be  defeated  because  he  had 
opposed  the  great  business  interests  that  controlled 
the  Government  and  the  Republican  party  and  there 
fore,  if  South  Dakota  wanted  to  get  anything  out  of 
the  Government,  they  should  elect  a  man  that  would 
train  with  the  gang. 

Theodore  Roosevelt  also  joined  in  the  contest  against 
me  as  the  candidate  of  the  Republicans  for  vice 
president  on  the  ticket  with  McKinley,  and  sent  the 
following  telegram  to  Senator  Platt  in  October,  1900: 

"Good  Lord,  I  hope  we  can  beat  Pettigrew  for  the 
Senate.  That  particular  swine  .seems  to  me,  on  the 
whole,  the  most  obnoxious  of  the  entire  drove." 

Why  was  Roosevelt  opposed  to  my  election?  Be 
cause  he  was  the  candidate  of  the  predatory  interests 
that  own  the  Government  of  the  United  States. 
Charles  Edward  Russell  answered  my  question. 

Asserting  that  many  public  men  of  value  to  the 
country  have  been  cried  down  by  the  clamor  of  sub 
sidized  newspapers,  Mr.  Russell  says  further: 

"I  have  .seen  this  happen  a  thousand  times.  Every 
observer,  particularly  if  he  has  been  a  newspaper 
man,  must  be  familiar  with  it.  Years  ago  there  was 
a  man  in  the  United  States  Senate  that  certain  news 
papers  did  not  like,  because  he  had  attacked  the  inter 
ests  that  owned  these  newspapers.  The  newspapers 
covered  that  man  with  ridicule  by  misrepresenting 
everything  he  did  or  said.  They  convinced  a  large 
part  of  the  country  that  he  was  a  wild,  erratic,  absurd, 
visionary;  when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  had  one  of 
the  coolest,  clearest  and  .steadiest  minds  I  have  ever 
known  in  a  long  acquaintance  with  public  men  and 
affairs.  Yet  the  news  columns  drove  him  out  of  public 
life,  to  the  great  interest  of  the  puMic  interests.  I 

302 


have  no  objection  to  mentioning  his  name.  It  was 
R.  F.  Pettigrew. 

"He  was  ahead  of  the  times,  for  his  vision  was 
clearer  than  most  men  now  occupying  positions  of 
public  trust,  and  he  realized  then  that  the  interests 
were  weaving  the  web  of  autocratic  control  about  the 
several  departments  of  the  Government. 

"Possessing  the  courage  of  his  convictions,  he  stood 
almost  alone  as  a  target  for  the  shafts  of  mendacious 
newspapers,  many  of  them  instigated  by  the  sullen 
command  of  great  wealth.  They  were  merciless  and 
the  people  believed  them  rather  than  the  man  who  had 
interceded  in  their  behalf." 

After  Henry  Payne's  canvassers  had  reported  the 
result  of  their  poll  of  the  people  of  the  state  of 
Dakota,  Hanna  went  out  among  the  railroad  in 
terests,  the  trust  interests  and  the  financial  interests 
of  this  country,  and  raised  a  special  fund  of  $500,000 
to  be  expended  in  the  purchase  of  Dakota  votes.  I 
did  not  believe  that  it  could  be  done  because  I  had 
great  confidence  in  the  farmers  of  Dakota  and  I  Bad 
underestimated  the  resources  of  the  business  inter 
ests,  overestimated  the  possibilities  of  ordinary 
human  nature.  Hanna  himself  came  to  South  Da 
kota  and  stumped  the  state  with  Senator  Fry,  of 
Maine.  The  railroads  furnished  a  special  train. 
The  State  Committee  had  been  lavish  with  its  publi 
city  and  great  crowds  met  the  Hanna  special  at 
every  station. 

At  Midson,  where  there  is  a  normal  school,  Hanna 
began  his  speech  by  taking  off  his  hat  and  saying, 
"You  see,  I  have  no  horns." 

The  next  day  I  addressed  the  same  crowd — largely 
composed  of  farmers — and  said,  "Of  course  Mark 
Hanna  has  no  horns,  I  dehorned  him  in  the  Senate." 
And  then  I  told  the  ,story  of  how  he  had  bought  his 
•seat  in  that  body.  A  day  or  two  after  my  speech  at 
Madison,  Hanna  came  to  Sioux  Falls  and  addressed 

303 


a  large  outdoor  meeting  and  someone  in  the  crowd 
yelled  to  Hanna  to  take  off  his  hat  and  show  the 
crowd  where  Pettigrew  dehorned  him. 

I  was  very  badly  beaten  in  the  election.  After  it  was 
over  I  made  an  investigation  to  determine  how  the 
work  had  been  done.  The  Republicans  had  visited 
every  banker  in  every  country  town  in  the  State;  had 
deposited  a  sum  of  money  with  him,  and  had  given  him 
minute  instructions  as  to  the  part  that  he  was  to  play 
in  the  campaign. 

The  local  representatives  of  the  Republican  party 
would  then  take  a  list  of  the  farmers,  and  watch  for 
each  man.  When  he  came  into  town  they  would  take 
him  over  the  bank  and  the  banker  would  hand  him 
ten  dollars  in  cash. 

"That  is  yours,"  the  representative  of  the  Republican 
party  would  state,  "and  if  Pettigrew  loses  this  town 
ship  (or  county)  in  the  election  there  is  ten  dollars 
more  for  you  at  the  bank  that  you  can  get  by  coming 
in  and  asking  for  it  after  election." 

In  some  cases,  in  several  cases  of  which  I  know  per 
sonally,  the  ,sum  was  twenty  dollars  before  election  and 
twenty  dollars  after  election. 

Hanna  boasted,  after  the  election,  that  my  name  was 
never  mentioned  in  any  of  his  campaign  speeches  by 
either  himself  or  Senator  Fry.  But  his  statement  is 
false  in  this  respect,  for  a  Roberts  County  paper  pub 
lished  the  following  just  after  Mark  Hanna's  visit: 

"Mark  Hanna  at  Sisseton  Indian  Agency,  South  Da 
kota,  in  an  address  to  Two  Stars,  chief  of  the  Sissetons, 
chaperoned  by  Mr.  Sapackman,  chairman  of  the  Rob 
erts  County  Republican  Committee: 

"  'I  understand  that  half  of  you  Indians  are  going  to 
vote  for  Bryan  and  Pettigrew.  I  understand  that  your 
annuities  from  the  Government,  due  in  about  six  weeks, 
are  $22  per  capita.  That  is  enough  for  Indians  who 
vote  against  the  Great  Father.  If  all  the  Sisseton  In 
dians  will  vote  the  Republican  ticket,  I  will  have  the 
Government  increase  their  annuities  $75  per  head. 

304 


This  will  give  to  the  Sisseton  Indians  $75  apiece  instead 
of  $22  apiece.  Do  you  tumble  ?' 

"They  tumbled  and  God  did  not  forbid  that  citizen 
Mark  Hanna  should  attempt  to  divert  the  will  of  the 
sovereign  people  or  tamper  with  the  sanctity  of  their 
ballots." 

I  have  since  talked  with  many  of  these  Indians  who 
heard  Mark  Hanna's  statement  to  them,  and  who  cor 
roborate  this  story  from  the  local  newspaper.  They 
also  told  me  that  Mark  Hanna  never  made  any  effort 
to  secure  for  them  seventy-five  dollars  per  capita  which 
he  had  promised  them  if  they  would  vote  against  me. 

I  also  learned  that,  during  the  campaign,  the  Repub 
lican  Committee  of  South  Dakota  had  trunkfuls  of 
blank  passes  from  every  railroad  in  the  country.  Upon 
these  passes  they  could  send  a  man  and  his  family  to 
any  point  in  the  United  States  or  the  adjacent  countries 
and  return,  free  of  cost  and  at  the  expense  of  the  rail 
road.  I  know  of  several  prominent  Democrats  who 
made  long  excursions  after  the  election,  one  of  them 
taking  his  family  to  the  Hawaiian  Islands. 

Mark  Hanna  had  secured  these  passes  by  appealing 
to  the  railroads  when  they  made  their  effort  to  swindle 
the  Government  out  of  the  money  which  had  been  ad 
vanced  to  build  the  roads.  He  had  also  cited  my  bills 
for  the  Government  ownership  of  all  the  roads  in  the 
United  States,  as  well  as  my  exposures  of  the  swindles 
in  connection  with  the  Railway  Mail  Pay.  Consequently 
the  railroads  not  only  furnished  transportation,  but  a 
considerable  amount  of  the  money  used  against  me. 
James  J.  Hill,  president  of  the  Great  Northern  Road, 
told  me  afterwards  that  Mark  Hanna  had  assessed  him 
fifty  thousand  dollars,  and  he  told  Hanna  that  he  not 
only  would  not  give  a  single  dollar  towards  trying  to 
defeat  me  in  South  Dakota,  but  he  would  not  give  the 
Republican  National  Committee  any  money  whatever 
if  they  were  going  to  undertake  the  purchase  of  the 
voters  of  South  Dakota. 

After  the  election,  I  was  in  the  Auditorium  Hotel, 

305 


in  Chicago,  getting  lunch  one  day,  when  a  young  man 
came  in  and  asked,  'Is  this  ex-Senator  Pettigrew?' 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "it  is." 

"Well,"  said  the  young  man,  "I  want  to  tell  you  of 
an  incident  that  might  be  of  interest  to  you.  I  was 
Mark  Hanna's  private  secretary  in  1900,  and  on  elec 
tion  day  Hanna  left  Chicago  and  went  back  to  Cleveland 
to  vote,  leaving  me  in  charge  of  the  Republican  head 
quarters.  About  ten  o'clock  election  night,  Hanna  called 
me  up  over  the  phone  and  wanted  to  know  about  the 
election.  I  told  him  that  McKinley  was  undoubtedly 
elected,  and  Hanna  replied,  'Oh,  I  know7  that;  but  how 
about  Pettigrew?'  I  thereupon  replied,  'Pettigrew  is 
undoubtedly  beaten,'  and  Hanna  said,  'If  you  are  sure 
of  that  I  can  go  home  and  go  to  bed  and  to  sleep.  I 
wanted  to  accomplish  two  things  in  this  election — to 
elect  McKinley  and  to  beat  Pettigrew,  and  I  did  not 
know  which  I  wanted  the  worst.' ' 

I  think  that  was  the  most  striking  compliment  that 
was  ever  paid  to  my  work  in  the  Senate.  I  had  kept 
up  my  attacks  upon  the  plutocracy  until  their  spokes 
man  was  as  anxious  to  defeat  me  as  he  was  to  elect  a 
president.  I  sent  thousands  of  copies  of  the  following 
letter  to  the  voters  of  South  Dakota  in  my  campaign 
for  re-election  to  the  United  States  Senate  in  1900 : 

"Sioux  Falls,  S.  D.,  July  24,  1900. 
"Dear  Sir: 

"I  enclose  herewith  a  copy  of  the  platform  adopted 
at  Kansas  City.  It  is  a  new  Declaration  of  Indepen 
dence.  It  is  the  platform  upon  which  I  am  running 
for  re-election  to  the  United  States  Senate.  I  have 
been  twice  elected  to  the  Senate  from  South  Dakota, 
receiving  the  united  support  of  the  Republicans  of  the 
state,  and  in  both  instances  also  of  very  many  of  the 
Democrats  and  Populists. 

"I  am  now  a  candidate  for  re-election  upon  the  plat 
form  which  I  enclose,  because  I  think  it  embraces  the 
best  settlement  of  the  great  principles  involved  in  the 

306 


coming  political  contest  that  I  have  seen.  I  am  not 
therefore  a  candidate  for  re-election  as  a  Republican, 
for  the  reason  that  I  believe  this  contest  is  not  one  be 
tween  political  parties,  but  is  a  contest  between  those 
who  wish  to  preserve  Republican  institutions  in  this 
country  and  prevent  the  Republic  from  becoming  an 
aristocracy.  It  is  a  battle  between  the  Man  and  the 
Dollar;  between  concentrated  wealth  in  the  hands  of  a 
few  people  and  the  great  mass  of  the  people  who  have 
produced  the  wealth,  but  who  are  unable,  owing  to  a 
pernicious  system  of  transportation  and  combination  of 
capital,  to  enjoy  that  which  they  produce. 

"The  Republican  party  has  been  captured  by  the  evil 
elements,  by  the  great  transportation  companies,  the 
great  money  trusts,  and  the  great  combinations  of  capi 
tal  which  have  gained  control  of  our  manufacturing 
industries.  It  is  therefore  for  the  interest  of  the  Re 
publican  party  to  perpetuate  that  legislation  which  has 
produced  the  condition  in  regard  to  the  distribution  of 
wealth  in  this  country,  against  which  I  protest. 

"I  have  not  changed  my  views  upon  these  great  issues 
since  I  ceased  to  act  with  the  Republican  party  polit 
ically.  My  votes  in  the  Senate  on  all  these  questions 
have  been  the  same  during  the  past  four  years  as  they 
were  during  the  previous  seven  years.  If  I  had  changed 
my  position  on  these  questions  my  enemies  would  have 
ample  proof  of  the  fact  in  the  Record  of  the  Senate; 
but  the  votes  which  I  have  recorded  show  that  my 
position  has  not  been  changed,  but  the  position  of  the 
Republican  party  has  changed  completely — so  much  so 
that,  when  I  offered  an  amendment  to  the  last  Repub 
lican  Tariff  Bill,  refusing  protection  to  articles  con 
trolled  by  the  trusts  unless  they  dissolved  the  trusts, 
and  allowed  free  competition  within  our  own  country, 
every  Republican  Senator  voted  against  it  and  defeated 
the  measure. 

"When  the  War  Revenue  Bill,  to  pay  the  expenses  of 
carrying  on  the  war  with  Spain,  was  under  considera 
tion,  I  offered  an  amendment  to  tax  the  products  of  the 

307 


trusts  as  a  means  of  raising  revenue,  or  compelling  the 
dissolution  of  the  trusts,  and  every  Republican  Senator 
voted  against  my  amendment. 

"We  offered  an  amendment  to  levy  a  tax  upon  in 
comes  to  support  our  armies  in  the  contest  with  Spain, 
and  all  the  Republican  members  of  the  Senate  voted 
against  it,  and  the  bill  was  so  framed  as  to  lay  the 
entire  burden  of  taxation  upon  the  individual — upon 
consumption — so  that  the  poor  man  would  pay  just  as 
much  as  the  man  of  enormous  wealth. 

"Against  this  unequal  and  unfair  distribution  of  the 
burdens  of  taxation  I  protested,  on  the  ground  that  it 
tended  to  the  unequal  distribution  of  wealth;  and  that 
where  the  wealth  of  a  country  was  once  gathered  into 
the  hands  of  a  few  men  the  manhood  of  the  masses  was 
destroyed  and  the  institutions  of  our  country  endan 
gered.  But  the  Republican  party,  controlled  by  evil 
influences  and  headed  by  Mark  Hanna,  persisted  in 
their  policy,  which  has  made  it  impossible  for  me  to 
act  with  them  politically. 

"I  left  the  Republican  party  in  1896  for  the  reason 
that  I  felt  that  the  party  had  left  the  side  of  the  people 
in  its  abandonment  of  bimetallism;  but,  above  all,  be 
cause  of  the  fact  that  it  omitted  from  its  platform  at 
St.  Louis  all  allusion  whatever  to  the  trusts.  Since 
that  time,  its  course  has  been  more  and  more  in  the 
direction  of  plutocracy,  more  and  more  in  the  direction 
of  the  government  of  the  few  to  the  disregard  of  the 
many,  and  their  interests ;  and  it  has  culminated  in  an 
effort  to  conquer  people  living  in  the  tropics,  and  to 
annex  to  this  country  territory  that  will  never  be  or 
ganized  into  states,  and  in  the  establishment  of  a  colo 
nial  policy  in  violation  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  and  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  of 
every  theory  of  Government  we  have  advocated  as  a 
people. ' 

"I  believe  that  colonial  possessions  mean  a  standing 
army  of  great  proportions,  and  a  vast  horde  of  office 
holders  serving  a  long  distance  from  home,  governing 

308 


an  unwilling  people,  which  must  result  in  constant  con 
flict,  and  end  in  the  curtailment  of  the  right  to  vote 
among  our  own  people,  and  a  suppression  of  all  protest 
by  the  armed  forces  assembled  and  equipped  in  the  first 
instance  for  the  purpose  of  conquering  these  distant 
possessions. 

"Under  these  circumstances,  no  matter  what  may  be 
the  consequences  to  me  personally,  I  feel  it  my  duty  to 
do  everything  in  my  power  to  overthrow  at  the  polls  the 
dominion  and  control  of  the  Republican  party,  and  thus 
restore  this  country  in  letter  and  in  spirit  back  to  the 
principles  and  doctrines  of  its  founders,  so  that  it  may 
continue  to  be  an  example  to  all  people  who  believe  in 
the  doctrine  of  self-government,  and  that  governments 
derive  their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the 
governed. 

"I  thus  write  you  this  long  letter,  hoping  to  make 
my  own  position  clear,  and  stimulate  you  to  greater 
activity  and  effort  in  the  coming  campaign.  I  should 
like  very  much  to  hear  from  you  on  this  subject. 

"Yours  truly, 

"R.  F.  PETTIGREW." 


509 


XXII.     HAWAII — A  REVOLUTION  TO  ORDER 

During  the  years  of  my  acquaintance  with  Amer 
ican  public  life,  I  have  seen  the  center  of  power  move 
from  Washington  to  Wall  Street.  When  I  first  entered 
the  Senate  they  talked  of  the  "invisible  empire  of  busi 
ness."  During  the  nineties  that  empire  ceased  to  be 
invisible — it  came  out  in  the  open,  and  through  its  rep 
resentatives  and  attorneys  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate 
and  the  House  it  fought  its  battles  for  privilege  and 
plunder — fought  them  and  won  them. 

The  plutocracy  established  its  right  to  plunder  the 
people  of  the  United  States.  Through  the  banks,  the 
railroads  and  the  trusts,  it  robbed  them  openly  and 
shamelessly,  and  those  few  of  us  who  fought  on  the 
side  of  the  people  and  against  these  masters  of  privi 
lege,  were  driven  out  of  public  life  for  our  pains.  Laws 
aimed  to  promote  the  general  welfare  were  not  so  much 
as  considered  in  Washington.  The  work  of  Congress 
was,  first  and  last,  to  protect  and  safeguard  the  inter 
ests  of  big  business. 

I  saw  this  thing  and  faced  it.  I  fought  it  in  the 
Senate  during  twelve  years  with  all  the  strength  and 
ability  at  my  command,  and  when  those  twelve  years 
of  struggle  were  ended,  the  business  power  was  im 
measurably  stronger  than  it  was  when  they  began. 

The  real  strength  of  big  business  came  over  the  issue 
of  imperialism.  The  right  to  plunder  at  home  had  been 
pretty  firmly  established  by  the  time  the  Sherman  Law 
was  passed  in  1890.  The  right  to  plunder  abroad  had 
never  come  up  for  serious  consideration. 

From  1870  to  1890  the  business  interests  of  the 
United  States  were  busy  building  railroads,  opening 
mines  and  establishing  factories.  Even  as  late  as  the 
nineties  there  were  only  a  few  of  the  business  groups 
that  were  looking  outside  the  country  for  a  chance  to 
exploit  and  rob.  Among  these  few  were  the  sugar  men. 

The  United  States  has  never  provided  its  own  sugar 
supply.  The  sugar  business  is  a  profitable  one,  how- 

310 


ever,  and  the  American  business  men  made  up  their 
minds  that  if  profits  were  to  be  made  in  sugar  they 
might  as  well  have  them. 

The  fight  turned  on  Hawaii. 

The  Hawaiian  Islands  have  a  climate  well  adapted  to 
sugar-growing  and  the  soil,  a  deep  volcanic  ash  over 
lying  boulders,  is  the  best  sugar-cane  soil  in  the  world. 
In  Hawaii  they  raise  eight  tons  of  sugar  to  the  acre. 

Hawaii  was  owned  by  foreign  capitalists  among 
whom  the  Americans  were  the  largest  single  holders. 

I  had  an  investigation  made  when  I  was  in  Hawaii  of 
the  books  of  the  interior  department,  for  their  law 
required  that  every  sugar  corporation  should  file  a  re 
port  giving  the  names  of  the  stockholders.  All  of  the 
corporations  did  not  comply  with  the  law,  but  several 
did  comply.  I  had  their  reports  studied  and  from  them 
it  appeared  that  the  holdings  in  sugar  corporations,  ar 
ranged  by  nationality,  were:  American,  $3,225,750; 
British,  $1,642,350 ;  Hawaiian,  $792,000 ;  German, 
$458,700;  and  Portuguese,  $1,200,  making  a  total  of 
$6,120,000.  In  short,  more  than  half  of  the  sugar 
plantation  values  were  American  owned. 

The  estimates  of  taxable  property  in  the  Islands 
showed  that  the  Hawaiians,  who  numbered  together 
39,504  individuals,  owned  taxable  property  to  the 
amount  of  $8,101,701,  while  the  Americans,  British  and 
Germans,  6,768  in  number,  owned  taxable  property  to 
the  amount  of  $26,701,908.  The  "foreigners,"  while 
numbering  only  one-seventh  of  the  taxpayers,  owned 
more  than  three-quarters  of  the  taxable  wealth  in  the 
Islands. 

Foreign  economic  interests  on  the  Islands  were  para 
mount,  and  it  was  these  interests  that  fostered  the 
Revolution  of  1893.  I  need  not  go  into  this  matter  in 
detail,  as  I  have  elaborated  on  it  elsewhere  (The  Course 
of  Empire,  Chapter  V).  Let  it  suffice  to  say  that  the 
United  States  Minister,  resident  at  Honolulu,  entered 
into  a  conspiracy  with  a  few  business  men  and  their 
representatives  for  the  purpose  of  overthrowing  the 

311 


native  government,  and  deposing  the  reigning  queen. 
As  a  part  of  this  conspiracy,  the  United  States  Minister 
used  American  marines  to  protect  the  conspirators 
while  they  organized  a  government,  which  was  imme 
diately  recognized  by  the  United  States  Minister.  A 
treaty,  based  on  this  disgraceful  incident,  was  sent  to 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States  for  ratification  on  the 
recommendation  of  President  Harrison,  and  was  re 
ported  favorably  by  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Rela 
tions. 

The  report  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations 
did  not  tell  the  facts  regarding  the  overthrowing  of  the 
Hawaiian  Government;  neither  did  the  message  to  the 
President  transmitting  the  treaty  give  the  essential 
facts,  and  it  was  with  great  difficulty  that  the  facts 
were  obtained.  But  the  infamy  of  the  whole  transac 
tion  was  finally  disclosed  and,  after  a  great  many 
months  of  controversy,  the  treaty  failed  to  command 
the  two-thirds  vote  necessary  for  its  ratification. 

I  was  the  leader  of  the  fight  in  the  Senate  against  the 
treaty  and  its  ratification.  The  question  excited  wide 
spread  attention.  Most  of  the  great  newspapers  were 
outspokenly  in  favor  of  ratifying  the  annexation  treaty. 
They  filled  their  columns  with  false  headlines  on  the 
subject,  and  even  resorted  to  the  practice  of  making 
up  press  dispatches  purported  to  come  from  the  Islands. 
Despite  all  their  efforts,  however,  the  treaty  could  not 
pass. 

There  is  no  longer  any  dispute  over  the  material  facts 
of  the  Hawaiian  Revolution. 

What  were  the  essential  facts  behind  the  revolution 
that  led  the  United  States  to  make  its  first  annexation 
of  non-continental  territory.  There  is  no  longer  any 
serious  dispute  concerning  them. 

George  W.  Merrill,  who  was  our  Minister  to  Hawaii, 
wrote  Mr.  Secretary  Elaine,  September  7,  1889,  as 
follows : 

"It  is  also  noticeable  that  among  the  American  resi 
dents  here  there  are  several  who,  from  personal 

312 


motives,  contemplate  with  satisfaction  periodical  dis 
quietude  in  this  kingdom,  hoping  that  frequent  revo 
lutionary  epochs  will  force  the  United  States  Govern 
ment  to  make  this  group  a  part  of  its  territory  and  to 
absorb  into  its  body  politic  this  heterogeneous  popula- 
lation  of  80,000,  consisting  of  Chinese,  Japanese,  Portu 
guese,  native  Hawaiians,  half-castes,  and  only  about 
5,000  of  those  who  may  be  properly  denominated  the 
white  race. 

"In  order  to  keep  affairs  in  as  much  turmoil  as 
possible,  baseless  rumors  are  constantly  put  in  circu 
lation,  many  of  which  find  publication  in  other  coun 
tries." 

This  was  from  our  minister  who  was  superseded 
shortly  afterward  by  Mr.  Stevens.  Mr.  Stevens  was 
appointed  minister  in  October,  1889.  Harrison  had 
been  elected  President.  One.  of  the  issues  of  the  cam 
paign  was  free  sugar.  The  McKinley  Act  became  a 
law  August  27,  1890.  On  August  20,  1891,  Mr.  Stevens 
wrote  to  Mr.  Elaine  as  follows: 

"The  probabilities  strongly  favor  the  presumption 
that  a  United  States  warship  will  not  be  pressingly 
necessary  in  the  two  or  three  immediate  months.  But 
as  early  as  the  first  of  December,  without  fail,  the 
month  preceding  the  election,  and  for  some  time  there 
after,  there  should  be  a  United  States  vessel  here  to 
render  things  secure.  .  .  .  There  are  increasing  indi 
cations  that  the  annexation  sentiment  is  growing 
among  the  business  men.  The  present  political  situa 
tion  is  feverish,  and  I  see  no  prospect  of  its  being  per 
manently  otherwise  until  these  islands  become  a  part 
of  the  American  Union  or  a  possession  of  Great  Brit 
ain." 

Here,  then,  is  our  minister,  accredited  to  a  friendly 
government,  contemplating  the  destruction  of  that 
government  and  the  annexation  of  its  territory.  Fur 
ther  on,  in  his  next  dispatch,  he  asked  the  State  De 
partment  to  keep  secret  his  statement  in  regard  to  the 
overthrow  of  that  government;  and  he  says  in  the 

313 


dispatch  that  it  would  be  uncomfortable  for  him  if  the 
facts  were  known  in  Hawaii. 

On  November  20,  1892,  Stevens  again  writes : 

"I  think  it  understating  the  truth  to  express  the 
opinion  that  the  loss  to  the  owners  of  the  sugar  planta 
tions  and  mills,  etc.,  and  the  consequent  depreciation  of 
other  property  by  the  passage  of  the  McKinley  Bill,  has 
not  been  less  than  $12,000,000,  a  large  portion  of  this 
loss  falling  on  Americans  residing  here  and  in  Cali 
fornia. 

"Unless  some  positive  measures  of  relief  be  granted, 
the  depreciation  of  sugar  property  will  go  on.  .  .  . 

"One  of  two  courses  seems  to  me  absolutely  neces 
sary  to  be  followed,  either  bold  and  vigorous  measures 
for  annexation,  or  a  "customs'  union/'  and  ocean  cable 
from  the  Californian  coast  to  Honolulu,  Pearl  Harbor 
perpetually  ceded  to  the  United  States,  with  an  implied, 
but  not  necessarily  stipulated,  American  protectorate 
over  the  islands.  I  believe  the  former  to  be  the  better, 
that  which  will  prove  much  the  more  advantageous  to 
the  islands,  and  the  cheapest  and  least  embarrassing 
in  the  end  for  the  United  States." 

Here,  in  1892,  two  months  before  the  final  revolution, 
our  minister  outlines  the  reason  for  it  and  advises  an 
nexation  as  a  remedy  for  the  situation.  This  state 
ment  of  Minister  Stevens  is  supplied  by  ample  evidence 
published  in  the  official  investigation  which  President 
Cleveland  caused  to  be  made  of  the  whole  situation. 

The  American  Minister  had  been  converted  into  an 
advocate  of  the  overthrow  of  the  friendly  government 
to  which  he  was  sent ;  and  what  was  done  by  these  con 
spirators,  few  in  number,  having  vast  wealth — fortunes 
made  absolutely  out  of  the  people  of  the  United  States 
in  the  profit  upon  sugar?  The  American  Minister 
having  been  secured,  the  next  step  was  to  find  an  excuse 
for  overthrowing  the  existing  government. 

On  the  14th  of  January,  1893,  being  Saturday,  the 
Queen  took  steps  to  promulgate  a  new  constitution.  Pe 
titions  had  been  received  by  her  signed  by  two-thirds  of 

314 


all  of  the  voters  of  the  island,  protesting  against  the 
Constitution  of  1887  and  asking  that  a  new  one  be  pro 
mulgated.  The  Constitution  of  1887  deprived  a  large 
per  cent  of  her  people  of  the  right  to  vote  for  members 
of  the  Senate  or  any  voice  in  the  government.  The 
Constitution  left  the  control  of  the  country  in  the 
hands  of  the  foreign  business  men  and  the  people  re 
sented  it. 

Immediately  on  the  proposition  being  made  to  adopt 
a  new  Constitution,  nine  business  men  had  a  meeting 
in  Smith's  office.  Smith  was  a  lawyer  in  Honolulu. 
Later,  he  became  an  attorney-general  of  the  so-called 
republic.  There  they  began  to  plan  and  plot  for  the 
overthrow  of  the  Queen.  But,  finding  that  there  was 
opposition  to  her  movement,  the  Queen  abandoned  the 
idea  of  issuing  a  new  Constitution  and,  on  Monday, 
January  16,  1893,  she  issued  a  statement  to  that  effect. 

On  Saturday,  the  14th,  a  committee  of  safety  com 
posed  of  thirteen  members  had  been  organized  at  W.  V. 
Smith's  office.  At  this  meeting  the  feeling  was  ex 
pressed  that  this  was  a  good  time  to  get  rid  of  the  old 
regime  and  provide  for  annexation  to  the  United  States. 
There  was  no  fear  of  disorder,  no  thought  that  life  and 
property  were  in  danger. 

Mr.  Smith  stated  that  the  committee  at  his  office 
debated  whether  they  would  ask  the  United  States  to 
establish  a  protectorate.  They  concluded  that  as  the 
Queen  had  an  armed  force  it  was  best  to  appoint  a  com 
mittee  to  see  the  United  States  Minister,  and  ascertain 
what  he  would  do. 

After  the  meeting,  Smith  went  to  see  the  American 
Minister  and  arranged  with  him  as  to  what  should  be 
done  if  Smith  and  his  conspirators  were  arrested.  He 
secured  the  required  assurances  and  the  call  for  troops 
was  issued. 

These  conspirators  then  held  a  public  meeting  and 
Thurston  made  some  lurid  remarks — talked  about 
freedom,  etc.,  and  about  liberty  and  tyrannical  gov 
ernment — and  after  his  fiery  speech  they  passed  the 

315 


tamest  sort  of  resolutions  embodying  their  protest 
against  the  new  Constitution,  but  said  not  a  word  about 
overthrowing  the  government  or  establishing  a  new 
government. 

At  every  step  in  the  proceeding  great  care  was  taken 
to  consult  the  American  Minister  and  to  know  just 
what  he  should  do  in  case  the  conspirators  were  ar 
rested.  There  was  a  great  sense  of  fear  and  appre 
hension  of  danger  on  the  part  of  these  thirteen  men 
only.  All  honest  citizens  feit  safe  and  secure  in  life 
and  property. 

Troops  were  landed  from  the  United  States  gunboat 
in  the  harbor,  and  distributed,  not  for  the  purpose  of 
protecting  Americans  or  American  property,  but  to 
guard  the  government  building  and  show  the  Queen 
that  they  were  assisting  the  revolutionists.  This  was 
Monday  evening.  On  Tuesday  morning  the  Committee 
of  Thirteen  met  again  and  signed  the  proclamation  de 
claring  the  establishment  of  a  new  government,  and 
about  two  o'clock  started,  in  two  parties  on  different 
streets,  to  go  to  the  government  buildings,  now  guarded 
by  United  States  troops,  to  read  the  proclamation,  ac 
cording  to  a  previously  arranged  plan  with  our  min 
ister. 

Without  a  single  armed  man  they  proceeded  to  the 
government  building  and,  in  front  of  it,  within  seventy- 
five  yards  of  the  150  marines  landed  from  the  United 
States  vessel,  they  proceeded  to  read  the  proclamation 
declaring  that  they  wrere  the  government.  They,  how 
ever,  took  the  precaution  to  go  in  two  parties,  one  party 
going  up  one  street  and  the  other  party  another  street, 
so  as  not  to  attract  attention.  They  took  the  precau 
tion  to  send  one  of  their  number  up  to  see  if  there  were 
any  armed  men  likely  to  interfere. 

The  proclamation  having  been  read  at  the  govern 
ment  building,  guarded  by  United  States  troops,  the 
United  States  Minister  proceeded  at  once  to  recognize 
the  new  government.  They  had  not  an  armed  man — 
they  had  proceeded  to  the  government  building  where 

316 


there  were  clerks  and  officers  of  the  Hawaiian  Govern 
ment,  with  not  even  a  policeman  present.  They  stood 
up  in  front  of  that  building  within  seventy-five  yards 
of  the  Gatling  guns  of  the  marines  from  an  American 
battleship,  and  read  a  paper  declaring  that  they  were 
the  government.  Three-quarters  of  a  mile  away  the 
Queen  had  five  hundred  men  under  arms  and,  without 
waiting,  the  moment  they  read  the  proclamation  our 
minister  recognized  these  thirteen  men  as  the  govern 
ment  of  Hawaii — without  any  armed  forces  whatever, 
knowing  that  he  had  violated  international  law  and 
violated  the  precedents  followed  by  all  civilized  nations, 
and  he  undertook  to  falsify  the  facts. 

He  claimed  that  he  recognized  the  government  after 
the  Queen  had  surrendered — after  the  old  government 
had  given  up — after  she  had  abdicated  and  said  that 
she  would  submit  her  case  to  Washington.  An  investi 
gation  of  the  facts  proved  that  this  statement  is  false. 

After  the  recognition  of  this  so-called  government, 
before  the  surrender  of  the  Queen  or  the  armed  forces 
which  she  had,  a  delegation  was  sent  to  her  and  she 
surrendered  to  the  armed  forces  of  the  United  States, 
saying : 

"I  yield  to  the  superior  force  of  the  United  States  of 
America,  whose  minister  plenipotentiary,  His  Excel 
lency  John  L.  Stevens,  has  caused  the  United  States 
troops  to  be  landed  at  Honolulu  and  declared  that  he 
would  support  the  said  provisional  government. " 

To  avoid  collision  and  bloodshed,  she  submitted  the 
question  to  the  Government  at  Washington,  surrender 
ing  to  the  armed  forces  of  the  United  States ;  surren 
dering  after  Stevens  had  recognized  the  so-called 
government;  surrendering  because  she  was  told  that 
the  Government  of  the  United  States,  whose  people  she 
had  always  been  taught  to  reverence  and  respect,  would 
do  justice  and  restore  her  to  the  throne,  and  they  cited 
a  precedent  in  Hawaiian  history  as  a  justification  for 
this  claim: 

"On  the  10th  of  February,  1843-,  the  British  frigate 

317 


Carrysfort,  commanded  by  Lord  George  Paulet,  ar 
rived  at  Honolulu  and  showed  displeasure  by  withhold 
ing  the  usual  salutes. 

"He  proceeded  at  once  to  take  the  King  prisoner  and 
make  such  demands  upon  him  that  he  surrendered  his 
crown  on  condition  that  the  question  would  be  sub 
mitted  to  the  British  Government."  This  History  of 
the  Hawaiian  People  says: 

"Under  the  circumstances  the  King  resolved  to  bear 
it  no  longer.  'I  will  not  die  piecemeal,'  said  he;  'they 
may  cut  off  my  head  at  once.  Let  them  take  what  they 
please;  I  will  give  no  more/ 

"Dr.  Judd  (he  was  an  American)  advised  him  to 
forestall  the  intended  seizure  of  the  islands  by  a  tempo 
rary  cession  to  Lord  Paulet,  pending  an  appeal  to  the 
British  Government.  The  event  proved  the  wisdom  of 
this  advice. 

"On  the  next  day  the  subject  was  discussed  by  the 
King  and  his  council,  and  preliminaries  were  arranged 
with  Lord  Paulet  for  the  cession.  On  the  morning  of 
the  25th  the  King  and  premier  signed  a  provisional 
cession  of  the  islands  to  Lord  George  Paulet,  'subject 
to  the  decision  of  the  British  Government  after  the 
receipt  of  full  information  from  both  parties/ 

"At  3  o'clock  p.  m.,  February  25th,  the  King,  stand 
ing  on  the  ramparts  of  the  fort,  read  a  brief  and  elo 
quent  address  to  his  people." 

Then  they  submitted  the  question  to  Great  Britain, 
and  the  English  Government  promptly  restored  the 
King  to  his  throne,  refusing  to  accept  an  usurpation  of 
that  sort.  So,  in  this  case,  the  Queen,  having  in  mind 
this  historic  incident,  said: 

"I,  Liliuokalani,  by  the  grace  of  God  and  under  the 
Constitution  of  the  Hawaiian  Kingdom,  Queen,  do  here 
by  solemnly  protest  against  any  and  all  acts  done 
against  myself  and  constitutional  Government  of  the 
Hawaiian  Kingdom  by  certain  persons  claiming  to  have 
established  a  provisional  government  of  and  for  this 
kingdom. 

318 


"That  I  yield  to  the  superior  force  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  whose  minister  plenipotentiary,  His 
Excellency  John  L.  Stevens,  has  caused  United  States 
troops  to  be  landed  at  Honolulu  and  declared  that  he 
would  support  the  said  provisional  government. 

"Now,  to  avoid  collision  of  armed  forces  and  perhaps 
the  loss  of  life,  I  do,  under  this  protest,  and  impelled  by 
said  force,  yield  my  authority  until  such  time  as  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  shall,  upon  the  facts 
being  presented  to  it,  undo  the  actions  of  its  representa 
tives  and  reinstate  me  in  the  authority  which  I  claim  as 
the  constitutional  sovereign  of  the  Hawaiian  Islands." 

When  Kamehameha,  in  1843,  surrendered  and  ceded 
the  islands  to  the  British  admiral,  because  he  could  not 
resist  the  force  of  an  armed  ship  of  war,  the  English 
Government  promptly  repudiated  the  act  and  restored 
him  to  the  throne;  and  when  Queen  Liliuokalani,  de 
prived  of  her  authority  by  the  armed  forces  of  the 
United  States,  proposed  to  submit  the  question  to  this 
Government,  she  had  good  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
great  republic  would  preserve  its  honor  and  dignity 
among  the  nations  of  the  world  and  restore  her  to  the 
throne.  Yet,  in  the  face  of  these  facts,  the  treaty  made 
with  this  revolutionary  government  of  business  men 
was  passed  by  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  and 
this  country  took  title  to  Hawaii  against  the  will  of  the 
majority  of  the  people  in  that  country. 

On  January  31st,  thirteen  days  after  the  revolution, 
President  Dole  wrote  Mr.  Stevens  that  his  government 
could  not  maintain  itself,  and  asked  for  the  protection 
of  the  United  States  troops.  Stevens  complied,  and  our 
flag  was  put  up,  over  the  public  buildings,  and  re 
mained  up  until  April  1,  1893,  when  Mr.  Blount  ordered 
it  taken  down.  If  there  was  a  government  that  had 
been  able  to  create  and  establish  itself  and  to  main 
tain  itself  with  an  armed  force,  why  was  it  that  thir 
teen  days  afterwards  they  begged  of  Mr.  Stevens, 
admitting  their  impotency  to  maintain  their  govern 
ment,  to  again  land  the  troops  of  the  United  States 

319 


and  put  the  United  States  flag  upon  the  buildings? 
This  was  done  on  the  31st  of  January,  and  the  flag 
remained  there  sixty  days.  The  flag  went  up  in  dis 
honor.  When  it  was  raised  under  such  circumstances 
it  was  a  disgrace  to  the  Republic. 

During  the  sixty  days  while  our  flag  remained  upon 
this  building,  the  provisional  government  brought  in 
foreign  mercenaries  from  San  Francisco,  collected  an 
armed  force,  gathered  up  every  gun  upon  the  islands, 
passed  the  strictest  penal  laws  against  the  importation 
of  guns,  and  made  it  a  criminal  and  penal  offense  to 
have  a  gun.  The  so-called  republic  was  surrounded  by 
armed  men.  Back  and  forth  in  front  of  the  public 
offices  marched  men  with  Winchester  rifles. 

The  new  government  proceeded  rapidly  to  enact  laws. 
It  consisted,  not  of  a  legislative  body,  but  of  nineteen 
men,  self-constituted,  supported  by  our  armed  forces. 
They  provided  that  no  one  should  be  eligible  to  be  a 
senator,  a  representative  or  a  juror  until  he  should 
have  subscribed  to  the  following  oath  or  affirmation : 

"I  do  solemnly  swear  (or  affirm),  in  the  presence  of 
Almighty  God,  that  I  will  support  the  constitution, 
laws  and  government  of  the  Republic  of  Hawaii;  and 
will  not,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  encourage  or  as 
sist  in  the  restoration  or  establishment  of  a  monarchial 
form  of  government  in  the  Hawaiian  Islands." 

On  the  31st  an  act  concerning  seditious  offenses  was 
published.  This  law  made  it  an  offense  to  speak,  write 
or  print  anything  which  might  bring  hatred  or  con 
tempt  against  the  government.  On  the  same  day  was 
published  a  law  prohibiting  the  importation  of  firearms 
and  ammunition  without  first  obtaining  the  permission 
of  the  government.  On  the  same  day  an  act  relating  to 
contempts  became  law :  "Any  person  who  shall  publish 
any  false  report  of  the  proceedings  of  said  council,  or 
insulting  comment  upon  the  same,"  etc.,  was  liable  to 
imprisonment  for  thirty  days. 

What  did  this  revolutionary  government  do?  It  set 
up  a  republic !  For  nearly  a  year  after  the  government 

320 


was  created  they  had  no  constitution.  But  after  a  year 
the  nineteen  concluded  to  organize  the  Republic  of  Ha 
waii.  Such  a  republic  was  never  known  to  history 
before.  An  election  was  called  for  a  constitutional  con 
vention.  The  call  provided  that  the  people  who  would 
take  an  oath  to  support  their  government  might  elect 
eighteen  delegates  to  the  constitutional  convention.  The 
revolutionists,  nineteen  of  them,  constituted  themselves 
members  of  the  convention  without  any  election,  mak 
ing  the  election  of  delegates  absolutely  a  farce.  What 
kind  of  a  constitution  did  they  adopt?  Their  constitu 
tion  provided  for  an  oligarchy.  It  provided  that  the 
government  should  consist  of  Mr.  Dole  as  president — 
he  was  named  in  the  constitution — who  was  to  hold 
office  until  the  year  1900,  a  senate  of  fifteen  members 
and  a  house  of  representatives  of  fifteen  members, 
and  the  senate  and  house  sitting  together  were  to  elect 
Mr.  Dole's  successor  president  after  the  year  1900,  but 
no  successor  was  to  be  elected  unless  he  received  a  ma 
jority  of  the  senate;  and,  if  no  successor  was  elected, 
Dole  continued  to  hold  the  office. 

Under  this  constitution  no  person  could  vote  for  a 
senator  unless  he  was  worth  $3,000  in  personal  prop 
erty  or  $1,500  in  real  estate,  according  to  the  last  as 
sessment  for  taxation,  or  unless  he  had  an  income  of 
$600  a  year. 

These  provisions  shut  out  everybody  in  the  Hawaiian 
Islands  from  the  right  of  suffrage  except  the  sugar 
planters  and  their  fellow  business  and  professional 
men.  Such  a  qualification  would  have  disfranchised 
ninety  per  cent  of  the  voters  of  the  United  States. 

The  constitution  created  a  council  of  state,  five  of 
whom  were  to  be  selected  by  the  president,  five  by  the 
senate  and  five  by  the  house  of  representatives;  and 
this  very  constitution  provided  that  a  majority  of  the 
council  could  do  business.  Then  it  provided  that  they 
could  make  laws  and  appropriations  when  the  legisla 
ture  was  not  in  session,  and  that  their  laws  and  their 

321 


acts  and  their  appropriations  should  hold  good  until 
the  last  day  of  the  session  of  the  legislature. 

They  put  into  the  constitution  a  provision  for  a 
union,  commercial  or  political,  with  the  United  States. 
Did  that  come  from  the  people?  They  had  no  voice  in 
it.  The  constitution  was  not  endorsed  by  the  people  or 
.submitted  to  the  people.  After  this  self-constituted 
convention  had  adopted  its  constitution,  it  declared  the 
document  the  constitution  of  the  Republic  of  Hawaii, 
and  never  submitted  it  to  a  vote  at  all.  And  yet  it  was 
from  this  gang  of  sugar-raising  conspirators  that  we 
took  the  islands. 

The  annexation  of  Hawaii  was  the  first  big  victory 
won  by  the  business  interests  in  their  campaign  to 
plunder  outside  of  the  United  States.  It  was  the  prece 
dent  that  they  needed — the  precedent  that  made  easy 
the  annexation  of  Porto  Rico,  the  Platt  Amendment  to 
the  Cuban  Treaty,  the  conquest  of  the  Philippines  and 
the  other  imperialistic  infamies  that  have  sullied  tho 
good  name  of  the  United  States  during  the  past  twenty 
years. 

When  I  entered  this  fight  against  the  annexation  o  :* 
Hawaii,  I  had  a  vague  impression  of  the  power  tha : 
could  be  exerted  by  big  business.  The  fight  lasted  five, 
years,  and  when  it  was  ended,  I  had  a  clear,  ful 
knowledge  of  the  methods  and  the  strength  of  the 
American  plutocracy.  I  entered  the  fight,  knowing 
that  it  would  be  a  hard  one.  I  left  it,  wondering  that 
we  had  been  able  to  hold  off  the  interests  for  as  many 
as  five  years. 


322 


XXIII.     ANTI-IMPERIALISM 

The  Senate  debates  over  the  annexation  of  Hawaii 
had  roused  millions  of  Americans  to  the  imperial  men 
ace  that  was  threatening  the  life  of  the  Republic. 
Between  1893,  when  the  revolution  occurred  in  Hawaii, 
and  1898,  when  the  annexation  of  the  islands  was  fin 
ally  approved  under  the  stress  of  the  war  frenzy  that 
possessed  the  country,  I  carried  on  almost  a  continual 
fight  against  the  policy  of  those  who  were  advocating 
annexation.  The  friends  of  the  treaty  were  not  able, 
during  those  five  years,  to  secure  anything  like  the 
necessary  two-thirds  of  the  Senate,  and  the  fight 
against  annexation  might  have  been  won  but  for  the 
Spanish-American  War  with  its  tidal  wave  of  patri 
otic  frenzy. 

It  was  on  July  7,  1898,  after  the  war  had  been  in 
progress  for  more  than  two  months,  and  after  the 
public  attention  had  been  turned  from  the  problems  of 
imperialism  to  the  celebration  of  victory,  that  Hawaii 
was  annexed,  and  even  then  the  imperialists  still  lacked 
their  two-thirds  of  the  Senators,  so  that  it  was  neces 
sary  to  provide  for  annexation  by  a  joint  resolution 
which  required  only  a  majority  of  both  Houses  of  Con 
gress. 

With  the  end  of  the  war  there  was  a  swing  back 
toward  sanity  and  a  vigorous  protest  rose  from  all 
parts  of  the  country. 

Millions  of  the  plain  people  were  eager  to  stem  the 
tide  of  imperialism  that  was  running  so  strongly  in 
favor  of  the  big  business  interests  and  their  policies. 

As  one  means  of  checking  imperialism  an  Anti- 
Imperialist  League  was  formed  about  1899.  The  league 
had  a  large  popular  membership — about  half  a  million, 
I  believe — held  mass  meetings  and  conferences  in  all 
parts  of  the  country — adopted  a  platform  that  de 
nounced  the  imperialism  of  the  McKinley  administra 
tion,  and  pledged  itself  to  enter  politics  and  fight  the 

323 


issue  through  to  a  finish  in  every  voting  precinct  in 
the  United  States. 

Pursuant  to  this  program,  a  conference  was  called 
at  the  Plaza  Hotel  in  New  York,  for  the  6th  of  Janu 
ary,  1900.  The  national  elections  were  due  in  Novem 
ber  of  the  same  year ;  it  seemed  certain  that  McKinley 
would  seek  a  second  presidential  term  on  his  record 
as  an  advocate  of  annexation  and  conquest;  there  was 
therefore,  an  excellent  chance  to  make  a  clear  issue 
and  to  organize  a  large  enough  sentiment  within  the 
ranks  of  both  old  parties  to  administer  a  severe  rebuke 
to  the  business  interests  that  were  behind  the  Re 
publican  party  and  its  imperial  policies. 

The  meeting  of  January  6th  turned  out  to  be  an 
eventful  one.  Andrew  Carnegie  was  present,  as  well 
as  Carl  Schurz,  ex-Senator  Henderson,  Brisbane  Wal 
ker,  Gamaliel  Bradford,  Edward  Burrett  Smith,  Prof. 
Franklin  H.  Giddings,  and  about  ten  others.  All  were 
were  prominent  men,  and  all  were  radically  opposed 
to  any  movement  that  looked  towards  the  holding  of 
colonies  against  the  will  of  the  inhabitants  and  in  vio 
lation  of  the  principles  enunciated  in  the  Constitution 
and  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  I  was  the  only 
Senator  or  member  of  the  House  present  at  this  meet 
ing. 

We  had  our  meals  brought  to  us,  and  talked  all  day. 
Finally  we  decided  that  we  would  organize  a  third 
political  party. 

It  was  agreed  by  Carnegie  and  Schurz  and  Hender 
son  and  by  Prof.  Giddings  that  the  two  old  political 
parties — Democratic  and  Republican — were  just  alike; 
that  as  parties  they  were  simply  the  servants  of  the 
great  combinations  and  corporations  who  were  the  real 
rulers  of  the  country;  that  it  was  foolish  to  depend 
upon  either  of  them  to  oppose  a  policy  which  was  being 
pushed  by  their  financial  backers  and,  therefore,  it 
was  decided  to  start  a  third  party  and  to  organize  it 
in  every  county  in  the  United  States. 

324 


Mr.  Carnegie,  in  a  vigorous  speech,  urged  the  neces 
sity  of  a  new  political  party  for  the  purpose  of  oppos 
ing  the  imperial  policy  of  both  of  the  old  parties,  and 
said  that  he  would  give  as  much  money,  dollar  for  dol 
lar,  as  all  the  rest  of  us  could  raise  toward  promoting 
the  campaign.  As  a  pledge  of  good  faith,  he  subscribed 
twenty-five  thousand  dollars  on  the  spot. 

The  others  present  subscribed  a  like  amount, 
elected  Edward  Burrett  Smith,  of  Chicago,  chairman 
of  the  political  organization  which  they  were  forming, 
and  authorized  him,  in  consultation  with  the  commit 
tee  which  had  been  appointed,  to  take  charge  of  the 
campaign,  to  secure  an  organization  in  every  county 
in  the  United  States,  and  to  have  national  committee- 
men  from  every  state. 

Carnegie  paid  in  $15,000  of  the  $25,000  he  had  sub 
scribed.  The  others  paid  in  the  whole  of  their  sub 
scription  ($25,000)  and  active  work  was  begun  within 
a  month.  Shortly  after  the  New  York  meeting  Car 
negie  came  to  my  house  in  Washington,  talked  about 
the  whole  matter  with  me,  and  expressed  great  earnest 
ness  and  anxiety  about  the  success  of  the  movement. 
I  had  every  reason  to  believe  that  Carnegie  meant  to 
stand  by  the  movement,  and  I  felt  convinced  that  his 
financial  position  and  influence  would  enable  us  to  raise 
a  sufficient  amount  of  money  to  carry  on  an  effective 
campaign  against  McKinley  and  his  imperialist 
backers. 

I  had  known  Andrew  Carnegie  very  well  for  many 
years.  I  first  became  intimately  acquainted  with  him 
during  the  contest  in  the  Senate  over  the  annexation 
of  the  Hawaiian  Islands.  I  led  the  opposition  to  the 
annexation  of  those  islands  chiefly  because  the  annex 
ation  would  mean  that  we  were  starting  upon  a  colonial 
system,  acquiring  a  territory  inhabited  by  a  people  not 
suited  to  our  form  of  government,  and  that  such  a 
move  would  be  the  first  step  in  the  course  of  empire. 
Carnegie  was  of  the  same  view,  and,  during  the  con- 

325 


test,  often  came  to  my  house  in  Washington  and  dis 
cussed  the  question  with  me. 

At  the  same  time,  I  was  investigating  the  question 
of  the  distribution  of  wealth  in  the  United  States,  and 
I  discussed  the  matter  with  him  and,  finally,  made  a 
speech  in  the  Senate  on  that  question.  Carnegie  agreed 
with  me  that  the  concentration  of  wealth  in  a  few 
hands  and  the  move  for  imperialism  were  both  serious 
menaces  to  the  American  people  and  their  liberties. 
Carnegie  was  not  then  so  enormously  rich  as  he  after 
wards  became. 

Carnegie  was  a  rich  man  even  in  1900,  but  he  had 
liberal  views.  I  had  known  him  for  years,  and  had 
known  during  all  of  that  time  that  he  was  vigorously 
opposed  to  imperialism.  His  support  of  the  anti-impe 
rialist  movement,  therefore,  seemed  to  represent  a 
very  substantial  part  of  the  foundation  upon  which  the 
movement  was  built. 

The  story  of  our  plans  was  soon  noised  abroad,  and 
it  became  known  that  an  effort  was  being  made  to 
organize  a  third  political  party  with  the  backing  of 
Andrew  Carnegie.  About  the  middle  of  February  I 
received  a  letter  from  Mr.  Smith  urging  me  to  come 
to  New  York.  I  went  at  once,  and  was  told  by  Mr. 
Smith  that  Carnegie  had  refused  to  pay  in  any  more 
money  after  his  first  fifteen  thousand  dollars,  and  that 
he  had  refused  to  have  anything  to  do  with  the  mem 
bers  of  the  committee,  although  they  had  made  re 
peated  efforts  to  see  him  and  to  get  into  communica 
tion  with  him.  In  view  of  my  acquaintance  with 
Carnegie,  Mr.  Smith  thought  that  I  was  the  best  per 
son  to  see  him  and  ascertain  why  he  had  abandoned 
the  project  about  which  he  had  been  so  enthusiastic 
only  a  month  before. 

I  called  upon  Mr.  Carnegie,  but  he  refused  to  see 
me.  I  then  went  down  to  Wall  Street  to  see  some 
friends  and  acquaintances  who  were  interested  in  the 
business  side  of  national  affairs,  and  to  inquire  why 

326 


Carnegie  had  abandoned  his  effort  to  organize  a  third 
party,  and  had  gone  back  on  the  whole  anti-imperialist 
position  of  which  he  was  an  acknowledged  advocate.  I 
was  not  long  in  discovering  the  real  difficulty. 

The  steel  trust  had  been  talked  about  and  planned 
by  the  great  capitalistic  combinations  of  this  country, 
and  Carnegie  was  one  of  the  parties  to  the  negotiations. 
The  matter  had  gone  so  far  that  the  following  proposi 
tions  were  agreed  upon:  First,  they  were  to  organize 
a  corporation  with  one  billion  dollars  of  stock,  none  of 
which  was  to  be  paid  for;  second,  they  were  to  issue 
four  hundred  million  dollars  of  bonds  to  pay  for  the 
properties  and  furnish  working  capital.  Carnegie  was 
to  receive  one  hundred  and  sixty  millions  of  this  four 
hundred  millions  of  bonds  and,  in  addition,  a  like 
amount  of  the  stock,  and  he  was,  of  course,  very 
anxious  to  consummate  this  deal  which  was  of  enor 
mous  financial  advantage  to  him. 

No  sooner  was  it  noised  abroad  that  Carnegie  was 
actively  engaged  in  organizing  a  third  political  party, 
which  would  oppose  McKinley  and  his  imperialist  pol 
icy,  than  he  was  waited  on  by  a  committee,  with  the 
ultimatum  that  they  would  go  no  further  with  the 
organization  of  the  steel  trust  unless  he  abandoned  his 
third  party  activities  and  stopped  his  contributions 
towards  the  movement.  The  members  of  the  commit 
tee  told  him  that  it  was  absolutely  necessary  that  they 
should  have  a  protective  tariff  in  order  to  justify  the 
organization  of  the  steel  trust;  that  in  order  to  have  a 
tariff  satisfactory  to  them,  McKinley  must  be  elected ; 
that  the  organization  of  a  third  party  would  jeopardize 
his  election,  and,  consequently,  the  tariff,  and  as  they 
were  going  to  capitalize  the  tariff  by  the  issue  of  stock 
for  which  they  paid  nothing,  they  would  have  nothing 
further  to  do  with  the  steel  trust  if  Carnegie  insisted 
upon  pursuing  the  political  course  he  had  outlined. 

The  issue  was  a  very  clear  one — political  principles 
on  one  side  and  immense  financial  profits  on  the  other. 

327 


After  weighing  the  matter,  Carnegie  abandoned  the 
whole  third  party  movement  and  went  in  for  the  elec 
tion  of  McKinley. 

Subsequently,  the  steel  trust  organization  was  com 
pleted  and  Carnegie  received  his  quota  of  the  bonds 
and  stock  of  the  combination.  He  then  retired  from 
active  business  and  began  to  build  monuments  to  him 
self  all  over  the  world. 

The  anti-imperialist  movement,  which  had  depended 
so  largely  upon  Carnegie's  support,  worked  on  for  a 
time,  hampered  by  a  shortage  of  funds  and  a  lack  of 
effective  interest  in  influential  quarters.  Its  efforts 
were  virtually  nullified  by  Carnegie's  withdrawal  and 
the  lukewarm  support  from  other  sources.  The  Repub 
licans  won  the  election.  The  steel  trust  secured  the 
tariff  it  needed.  The  combination  was  perfected.  The 
imperial  policy  of  the  preceding  four  years  was  con 
firmed  by  the  election,  and  the  hopes  of  those  who  had 
worked  so  loyally  against  the  change  of  national  policy 
were  destroyed. 

Undoubtedly  we  made  a  mistake  to  pin  so  much  faith 
on  the  actions  of  one  man — particularly  in  view  of  his 
business  connections.  On  the  other  hand,  his  friend 
ship,  his  determination  and  his  apparent  sincerity  gave 
us  every  reason  to  believe  that  he  could  be  relied  upon 
to  see  the  movement  through. 

We  had  made  the  issue — in  Congress  and  out.  We 
had  set  the  Declaration  of  Independence  against  the 
conquest  of  the  Philippines  and  the  Constitution 
against  the  Hawaiian  Treaty.  We  had  placed  the 
rights  of  man  against  the  interests  of  the  plutocarcy. 
We  had  done  everything  that  human  ingenuity  and 
energy  and  foresight  could  do  to  make  our  fight  effec 
tive,  and  we  had  lost  out.  McKinley,  the  steel  trust, 
big  business  and  imperialism  had  won. 


328 


XXIV.    CRIMINAL  AGGRESSION  IN  THE  PHILIPPINES 

The  annexation  of  Hawaii  and  the  Spanish  Treaty, 
which  provided  for  the  acquisition  by  the  United  States 
of  Porto  Rico,  Guam  and  the  Philippines,  started  this 
country  definitely  on  the  course  of  empire.  From  that 
point — the  years  1898  and  1899 — we  were  committed 
to  an  imperial  policy. 

"Imperial  policy"  is  a  phrase  with  a  pleasant  sound 
and  a  dismal  echo — dismal  for  the  rights  of  man  and 
women.  The  moment  we  adopted  an  imperial  policy 
we  committed  ourselves  to  certain  lines  of  national 
conduct  that  are  as  far  from  the  principles  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  as  the  east  is  from  the 
west.  In  our  new  possessions  it  was  necessary: 

First,  to  beat  into  submission  any  of  the  native  pop 
ulation  which  displays  a  spirit  of  independence ; 

Second,  to  extend  the  imperial  boundaries  in  order 
to  have  more  opportunity  for  exploitation ; 

Third,  to  establish  measures  that  will  insure  the  ef 
fective  exploitation  of  the  native  population. 

Our  first  imperial  duty — that  of  beating  the  native 
population  into  submission — was  presented  only  in  the 
Philippines.  The  Cubans  were  nominally  self-govern 
ing;  the  inhabitants  of  Porto  Rico  had  welcomed  the 
Americans  as  saviors.  , 

The  Filipinos  had  followed  the  same  course  at  first, 
but,  when  they  found  that  they  were  not  to  be  free,  they 
turned  about  and  fought  as  stubbornly  for  their  inde 
pendence  of  American  rule  as  they  had  fought  during 
the  preceding  century  for  their  independence  of  Span 
ish  rule.  It  was  the  strength  of  the  American  army, 
not  the  justice  of  the  American  cause,  that  reduced  the 
Filipinos  to  submission. 

Perhaps  nowhere  in  American  history  is  there  a  rec 
ord  so  black  as  that  which  describes  our  dealings  with 
the  Filipinos.  Before  the  seizure  of  the  islands  by 
Admiral  Dewey,  McKinley  had  taken  a  high  moral 
stand  on  the  subject  of  forcible  annexation.  In  his 

329 


message  to  Congress  (April  11,  1898)  he  had  said:  "I 
speak  not  of  forcible  annexation,  for  that  cannot  be 
thought  of.  That,  by  our  code  of  morals,  would  be 
criminal  aggression."  So  it  would,  but  we  practiced  it 
toward  the  Filipinos  with  the  same  zest  that  the  Brit 
ish  have  displayed  in  India  or  the  Japanese  in  Korea. 

When  we  decided  to  attack  Spain,  when  Dewey  was 
ordered  to  sail  from  Hongkong  and  to  destroy  the 
Spanish  fleet,  a  rebellion  was  going  on  in  the  Philip 
pine  Islands.  The  inhabitants  of  those  islands  were 
trying  to  throw  off  the  Spanish  yoke.  Knowing  that  at 
Singapore  there  was  a  man,  the  most  capable  among 
the  Filipinos,  who  had  led  a  former  revolt,  our  officers 
in  the  East  induced  this  man  to  go  back  to  Manila  and 
organize  the  insurgent  forces.  Aguinaldo  arrived  on 
the  17th  day  of  May,  1898.  He  immediately  organized 
the  insurgent  forces.  He  purchased  arms  in  Hong 
kong.  Admiral  Dewey  furnished  him  with  arms  taken 
from  the  Spanish  forces,  and  he  attacked  the  Spanish 
garrisons  all  over  the  province  of  Cavite  and  secured 
arms  from  his  prisoners.  He  pursued  this  course  dur 
ing  the  summer  of  1898,  until  he  had  captured  the 
entire  island  of  Luzon  except  two  Spanish  garrisons — 
very  small  ones — and  before  winter  he  captured  those. 
Dewey,  in  his  report,  says  his  progress  was  wonderful. 
He  took  9,000  prisoners.  After  having  captured  the 
entire  island,  he  set  up  a  government,  which  was  a 
poaceful  government,  a  government  suitable  to  those 
people,  a  government  which  protected  life  and  property 
throughout  the  entire  area  of  that  country.  He  also 
captured  the  Southern  Islands,  the  Island  of  Panay,  of 
Cebu,  and  Negros,  and  organized  governments  there. 

He  assembled  an  army  of  30,000  men  and  surrounded 
Manila.  His  army  was  intrenched.  He  invested  the 
city  on  the  land  side  while  our  navy  blockaded  the  port 
on  the  ocean  side.  We  acted  in  absolute  concert  with 
each  other,  consulted  together,  and,  when  Manila  was 
finally  taken,  our  troops  landed,  asking  the  insurgents 

330 


to  give  up  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  their  trenches. 
They  marched  out  and  allowed  our  troops  to  occupy  a 
portion  of  their  works.  They  believed  that  they  were 
to  act  in  concert  with  us  in  the  attack  upon  Manila. 
When  the  attack  was  ordered  their  troops  marched 
into  the  city  along  with  ours.  They  took  the  principal 
suburb  of  Manila.  We  took  and  occupied  the  walled 
city.  When  they  came  to  the  walled  city,  which  con 
tained  less  than  one-fifth  of  the  population  of  the  city 
of  Manila,  they  found  our  bayonets  turned  against 
them.  They  were  told  that  they  could  not  enter.  They 
had  lost  thousands  of  lives  in  their  contest  with  Spain ; 
the}7  were  in  possession  of  that  entire  country,  and  yet, 
although  in  the  assault  upon  the  city  they  had  lost 
more  men  than  we  did,  they  were  denied  admittance  to 
the  city,  and  they  yielded  and  occupied  the  suburbs  for 
some  time. 

Finally,  we  requested  that  they  retire  from  the  sub 
urbs  and  they  retired.  Aguinaldo  asked  that  he  might 
be  permitted  to  retire  slowly,  as  it  was  difficult  to 
govern  his  people  and  convince  them  that  it  was  right 
that  they  should  surrender  possession  of  territory 
which  they  had  conquered  and  for  which  many  of  their 
comrades  had  laid  down  their  lives.  He  also  asked 
that,  in  case  we  made  a  treaty  with  Spain,  the  territory 
which  he  had  conquered  should  be  restored  to  him ;  and 
this  we  refused.  So  we  did  not  conquer  the  islands 
from  Spain,  for  Spain  had  been  conquered  and  driven 
out  by  the  government  of  Aguinaldo.  We  had  simply 
helped  to  take  the  city  of  Manila.  Therefore,  we  took 
no  title  by  conquest  from  Spain,  for,  at  the  time  of 
making  the  treaty  with  Spain,  we  had  not  conquered 
any  territory  from  her. 

We  did  not  acquire  title  by  purchase,  because  title 
by  purchase  required  delivery  of  possession  and,  as 
Spain  was  not  in  possession,  she  could  not  and  did  not 
deliver  the  islands  to  us.  By  what  right  are  we  there  ? 
By  no  right  in  morals  of  law;  by  no  right  that  can  be 
defended  before  God  or  man.  We  are  there  as  eonquer- 

331 


ors;  we  are  there  as  armed  banditti  that  would  enter 
your  premises  in  daytime,  and  we  have  no  more  right 
to  be  there  than  the  bandit  has  to  enter  and  despoil 
your  home. 

If  our  title  is  by  conquest,  then  it  is  as  yet  incom 
plete.  If  our  title  is  by  conquest,  we  did  not  acquire 
it  from  Spain,  and  it  is  nearly  two  years  since  the  war 
with  Spain  has  ceased,  and  yet  the  conquest  is  in  prog 
ress. 

In  October  Aguinaldo  was  again  asked  to  give  up 
more  territory.  He  was  again  asked  to  retire  his  troops 
beyond  not  only  the  city  of  Manila,  but  the  adjoining 
towns.  Then  he  called  the  attention  of  General  Otis 
to  the  fact  that  the  towns  which  Otis  desired  him  to 
surrender  were  not  a  part  of  Manila — you  will  find  it 
on  pages  20  and  21  of  General  Otis'  report.  General 
Otis  said,  "You  are  right;  the  territory  which  I  now 
demand  I  cannot  find  as  embraced  in  the  city  of  Manila 
or  its  suburbs,  but,"  he  said,  "that  makes  no  difference ; 
I  insist  on  the  possession  of  the  territory  anyway/'  So 
our  lines  were  pushed  out  constantly,  creating  irrita 
tion  and  bad  feeling. 

Finally  Dewey  seized  the  ships  of  the  Filipinos  in 
the  harbor.  Was  not  that  an  act  of  war?  Why  talk 
longer  about  who  commenced  the  war  in  the  Philip 
pines,  when  in  October  we  seized  the  vessels  of  our 
allies — and  they  were  vessels  of  war — dismissed  the 
men  who  manned  them,  took  down  the  Filipino  flag,  and 
removed  it  from  the  sea? 

On  the  24th  of  November,  Otis  again  wrote  to  Agui 
naldo,  saying  that  he  must  retire  beyond  the  village 
of  Santa  Mesa,  and  that  if  he  did  not  he  would  attack 
him.  On  the  21st  of  December  the  President  sent  a 
proclamation  to  be  published  in  the  Philippines,  telling 
the  inhabitants  that  the  United  States  has  assumed 
sovereignty  over  the  islands— a  proclamation  which 
was  a  clear  declaration  of  war — a  declaration  that  we 
would  extend  our  military  control,  then  existing  in 

332 


the  city  of  Manila,  throughout  the  entire  area  of  the 
group. 

This  proclamation  was  published  in  the  Philippines 
on  the  4th  of  January,  1899.  We  seized  their  ships  in 
October;  we  drove  them  beyond  the  territorial  limits 
of  the  city  of  Manila — the  only  country  we  had  occu 
pied  or  had  any  right  to  occupy  under  the  protocol  with 
Spain;  we,  on  the  4th  day  of  February,  attacked  their 
forces  and  fired  the  first  and  second  shots,  and  killed 
three  of  their  people.  After  that,  on  the  5th  day  of 
February,  the  day  after  hostilities  were  inaugurated, 
Aguinaldo  asked  to  have  hostilities  cease,  and  said  that 
he  had  no  notion  of  making  an  attack  on  our  people 
and  had  not  done  so.  The  reply  was  that  fighting  hav 
ing  once  commenced,  it  should  go  on  to  the  grim  end. 

Under  these  circumstances,  we  are  precluded  from 
taking  any  other  position  than  that  we  betrayed  and 
attacked  an  ally;  that  we  conquered  and  reduced  to 
subjection  an  unwilling  people;  that  because  we  are 
mighty  and  because  our  army  is  strong  enough  to  de 
stroy  the  independence  of  an  ally,  we  have  deliberately 
taken  possession  of  territory  that  was  desired  by  our 
big  business  men  for  their  enrichment. 

By  our  "code  of  morals"  our  very  presence  in  the 
Philippines,  after  the  natives  had  established  their  own 
government,  was  an  offense.  By  the  same  code,  our 
greatest  crime  in  the  Philippines  was  the  denial  by  the 
Washington  administration,  backed  by  the  army  and 
navy,  of  the  right  of  self-government.  The  Filipinos 
not  only  desired  self-government,  but  they  actually 
established  it  before  the  American  army  began  the 
conquest  of  the  islands. 

One  of  Lincoln's  most  famous  remarks  is  as  follows : 

"Those  who  deny  freedom  to  others  deserve  it  not 
for  themselves ;  and  under  the  rule  of  a  just  God  cannot 
long  retain  it." 

I  believe  that  is  true.  I  believe  the  reflex  action  upon 
our  own  people  of  the  conquest  of  other  peoples  and 
their  government,  against  their  will,  has  undermined 

333 


the  free  institutions  of  this  country,  and  has  already 
resulted  in  the  destruction  of  the  republic. 

President  McKinley  urged  the  conquest  of  the  Philip 
pines  because  he  said  they  were  not  fit  for  self-govern 
ment.  I  believe  that  there  are  no  people  fit  for  any 
other  form  of  government.  Governments  are  insti 
tuted,  not  bestowed,  and  therefore  derive  their  just 
powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed. 

Any  nation  of  people  is  capable  of  maintaining  as 
good  a  government  as  they  are  entitled  to  have. 
When  people  can  maintain  a  better  government 
they  will  evolve  it.  It  is  impossible  to  give  them 
a  better  government  than  they  can  maintain  for 
themselves.  A  form  of  government  will  be  as  gooc 
as  the  average  of  the  individuals  composing  the 
community  are  willing  to  have.  The  American  In 
dians  maintained  a  government  and,  for  them,  £ 
better  one  than  we  have  been  able  to  bestow  upon  them 
The  Esquimeaux  in  the  arctic  region  maintain  a  gov 
ernment  of  their  own  suited  to  their  condition  and  their 
circumstances,  and  it  is  a  better  government  than  any 
body  else  can  give  them.  Would  their  condition  be  im 
proved  by  sending  them  foreign  governors  and  a  for 
eign  council  to  enact  laws  and  direct  their  course  and 
method  in  life  and  to  guide  them  in  their  civic  and  civil 
affairs?  So  it  is  with  every  other  people  the  world 
around.  There  is  nothing  in  the  history  of  the  colonies 
of  the  so-called  Christian  nations  of  the  world  to  en 
courage  the  idea  that  we  can  give  to  this  people  a 
better  government  than  they  can  maintain  by  them 
selves. 

The  old  doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of  kings,  of  the 
hereditary  right  to  rule,  is  a  doctrine  that  we  Ameri 
cans  disputed  and  controverted  when  we  established 
our  government,  and  when  we  announced  the  doctrine 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  So  proud  have 
we  been  of  that  discovery  that  each  year  we  have  cele 
brated  the  birth  into  the  world  of  a  new  theory,  a  new 
doctrine  with  regard  to  governments ;  and  four  hundred 

334 


constitutions  have  been  framed  after  ours.  So  power 
ful  has  been  our  example  throughout  the  world  that 
nation  after  nation,  struggling  to  be  free,  has  adopted 
our  form  of  government. 

No  nation,  no  people,  in  all  time  and  in  all  history 
ever  impressed  such  a  powerful  influence  upon  the 
human  race  as  this  republic,  and  for  this  reason  alone. 
Empires  have  been  established;  since  history  began  a 
trail  of  blood  has  been  drawn  across  the  world,  and  a 
vast  aggregation  of  people  has  been  brought  under  the 
rule  of  an  emperor  or  monarch,  but  no  people  in  the 
history  of  the  world  has  ever  produced  such  a  powerful 
effect  for  good  upon  the  human  race  as  this  great  re 
public,  and  simply  because  of  the  doctrine  laid  down  by 
our  forefathers  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

Is  it  an  old  doctrine  that  all  governments  derive  their 
just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed?  Some 
have  said  that  it  was  a  nursey  rhyme  sung  around  the 
cradle  of  the  republic.  The  doctrine  is  new.  It  was 
announced  little  more  than  a  century  ago,  a  day  in  the 
birth  and  life  of  nations,  and  yet  this  great  republic 
deliberately  abandoned  it  for  the  old  doctrine  and  the 
old  theory  and  the  old  idea  of  selfishness. 

Lincoln,  in  his  speech  at  Springfield  on  June  26,  1857, 
thus  defined  his  notions  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  : 

"In  those  days  our  Declaration  of  Independence  was 
held  sacred  by  all  and  thought  to  include  all ;  but  now, 
to  aid  in  making  the  bondage  of  the  negro  universal 
and  eternal,  it  is  assailed  and  sneered  at,  and  construed, 
and  hawked  at,  and  torn,  till,  if  its  framers  could  rise 
from  their  graves,  they  could  not  at  all  recognize  it. 
All  the  powers  of  earth  seem  rapidly  combining  against 
him,  mammon  is  after  him,  abition  follows,  philoso 
phy  follows,  and  the  theology  is  fast  joining  the 
cry.  .  .  . 

"I  think  the  authors  of  that  notable  instrument  in 
tended  to  include  all  men;  they  did  not  mean  to  say 
all  were  equal  in  color,  size,  intellect,  moral  develop- 

335 


ment  or  social  capacity.  They  defined  with  tolerable 
distinctness  in  what  respects  they  did  consider  all  men 
created  equal — equal  with  "certain  inalienable  rights, 
among  which  are  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happi 
ness."  This  they  said,  and  this  they  meant.  They  did 
not  mean  to  assert  the  obvious  untruth  that  all  wer  3 
actually  then  enjoying  that  equality,  not  yet  that  they 
were  about  to  confer  it  immediately  upon  them.  In 
fact,  they  had  no  power  to  confer  such  a  boon.  The;/ 
meant  simply  to  declare  the  right,  so  that  the  enforce 
ment  of  it  might  follow  as  fast  as  circumstances  should 
permit. 

"They  meant  to  set  up  a  standard  maxim  for  free 
society,  which  should  be  familiar  to  all,  and  revered  by 
all,  constantly  looked  to,  constantly  labored  for,  and, 
even  though  never  perfectly  attained,  constantly  ap 
proximated,  and  thereby  constantly  spreading  and 
deepening  its  influence  and  augmenting  the  happiness 
and  value  of  life  to  all  people  of  all  colors  everywhere. 
The  assertion  that  "all  men  are  created  equal"  was  of  no 
practical  use  in  effecting  our  separation  from  Grea: 
Britain,  and  it  was  placed  in  the  Declaration  not  for 
that,  but  for  future  use.  Its  authors  meant  it  to  be  as, 
thank  God,  it  now  is  proving  itself,  a  stumbling  block  to 
all  those  who,  in  after  times,  might  seek  to  turn  a  free 
people  back  into  the  hateful  paths  of  despotism.  They 
knew  the  proneness  of  prosperity  to  breed  tyrants,  and 
they  meant  that  when  such  should  reappear  in  this  fair 
land  and  commence  their  vocation  they  should  find  left 
for  them  at  least  one  hard  nut  to  crack." 

It  seems  to  me  that  Lincoln,  with  his  prophetic 
vision,  must  have  foreseen  this  day  when  prosperity, 
breeding  tyrants,  should  undertake  to  declare  that  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  no  longer  applies  to  any 
body  but  the  people  whom  we  decide  are  capable  of 
self-government. 

The  holding  of  tropical  countries,  the  conquest  of 
unwilling  people,  their  retention  in  subjugation  by  a 
standing  army,  means  of  necessity  not  a  republic  where 

336 


all  the  people  must  be  consulted,  but  a  despotism  where 
the  will  of  one  man  can  march  armies,  declare  war  and 
act  with  great  rapidity.  A  republic  is  naturally  slow  in 
action,  because  the  people  must  be  considered  and  must 
be  consulted. 

We  took  on  many  of  the  semblances  of  monarchy  and 
of  imperialism  during  the  McKinley  administration — 
concealment  of  facts  from  the  people,  denial  of  news 
and  information,  no  knowledge  of  what  is  going  on,  no 
announcement  of  policy  and  purpose;  and  the  excuse 
for  it  all  was  that  if  we  should  allow  the  people  to  know 
the  facts  there  was  danger  of  creating  disapproval  of 
the  course  of  our  monarch,  and  if  the  enemy  should 
secure  these  facts  it  would  be  of  some  assistance  to 
them.  This  is  necessary  in  a  monarchy.  Press  censor 
ship  too  is  a  necessary  adjunct  of  imperialism — one  of 
the  things  our  forefathers  would  not  have  tolerated  for 
a  day.  And  yet  our  people  are  becoming  so  numb  that 
they  are  willing  to  accept  it,  and  even  criticize  men  who 
protest. 

We  annexed  the  Philippines  forcibly.  That,  accor 
ding  to  the  principles  laid  down  in  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  is  criminal  aggression.  We  departed 
from  the  foundation  principles  of  this  country ;  violated 
its  most  sacred  obligations  to  the  world,  and  pursued 
the  same  brutal,  unjustified  policy  that  Great  Britain 
has  pursued  wherever  her  conquering  armies  have 
mowed  down  naked  savages  with  machine  guns. 


337 


XXV.     IMPERIALISM  AT  WORK 

The  story  of  our  criminal  aggression  in  the  Philip 
pines  makes  bad  reading  for  the  liberty-loving  Ameri 
can,  but  it  is  not  the  only  shameful  page  in  American 
imperial  history — far  from  it.  The  United  States  has 
been  following  the  course  of  empire  for  many  a  year. 
Since  the  days  when  the  white  man  first  came  into  con 
tact  with  the  American  Indians,  the  English-speaking 
people  of  North  America,  after  the  example  of  their 
cousins  across  the  water,  have  been  robbing  weaker 
nations  of  their  property  and  calling  it  civilization. 

Our  first  aggressive  war  after  the  Revolution,  which 
made  us  a  nation,  was  the  war  in  1846  with  Mexico. 
We  invaded  Mexico  without  any  provocation  and  stole 
from  Mexico  half  her  territory  and  annexed  it  to  the 
United  States.  General  Grant,  in  his  Memoirs,  writes : 

"The  occupation  and  annexation  of  Texas  were,  from 
the  inception  of  the  movement  to  its  final  culmination, 
to  acquire  territory  out  of  which  slave  states  might  be 
formed  for  the  American  slave-holders.  Even  if  the 
annexation  of  Texas  could  be  justified,  the  manner  in 
which  the  subsequent  war  was  forced  upon  Mexico 
could  not."  (Vol.  1,  p.  33.) 

At  another  point  Grant  holds  that  "the  war  was  one 
of  conquest  in  the  interest  of  an  institution."  (Vol.  1, 
p.  115.)  Again  he  states:  "It  was  an  instance  of  a  re 
public  following  the  bad  example  of  European  monar 
chies  in  not  considering  justice  in  their  desire  to  ac 
quire  additional  territory."  (Vol.  1,  p.  32.)  These  are 
the  sentiments  of  a  man  who  was  an  officer  in  the 
American  army  that  conquered  Mexico  and  who  later 
distinguished  himself  in  the  Civil  War. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  in  the  House  of  Representatives, 
voted  against  and  denounced  the  war  with  Mexico  as  a 
great  wrong.  (See  his  speech  in  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives,  January  12,  1848.)  Later  in  the  same  year, 
in  a  letter  to  J.  M.  Peck,  Washington,  May  21,  1848 

338 


(Complete  Works,  N.  Y.  Century  Company,  1894,  Vol. 
1,  pp.  120-122),  he  writes: 

"It  is  a  fact  that  the  United  States  army,  in  march 
ing  to  the  Rio  Grande,  marched  into  a  peaceful  Mexican 
settlement,  and  frightened  the  inhabitants  away  from 
their  homes  and  their  growing  crops.  It  is  a  fact  that 
Fort  Brown,  opposite  Matamoras,  was  built  by  that 
army  within  a  Mexican  cotton  field.  ...  It  is  a  fact 
that  when  the  Mexicans  captured  Captain  Thornton 
and  his  command  they  captured  them  within  another 
Mexican  cotton  field." 

We  went  into  Mexico  because  we  had  taken  a  fancy 
to  some  of  Mexico's  territory.  After  a  war  that  lasted 
two  years  we  helped  ourselves  to  nearly  nine  hundred 
thousand  square  miles  of  land.  That  was  the  first  great 
military  triumph  of  the  American  imperialists. 

Our  next  performance  was  the  annexation  of  the 
Hawaiian  Islands,  and  this  was  closely  followed  by  the 
conquest  of  the  Philippines.  This  robbery  did  not  inure 
to  the  benefit  of  the  laboring  people  of  the  United 
States,  but  exclusively  to  the  advantage  of  the  exploit 
ing  speculators  and  plunderers. 

The  Mexican  War  occurred  more  than  seventy  years 
ago.  Between  that  time  and  the  Spanish  War  exactly 
fifty  years  elapsed  without  a  single  act  of  aggression  or 
a  single  war  of  conquest  waged  by  the  United  States. 
Those  were  the  years  during  which  the  slave  oligarchy 
of  the  South  was  replaced  by  the  power  of  an  exploiting 
plutocracy  of  the  North — the  years  that  saw  the  rise  to 
power  of  a  new  ruling  class  in  the  United  States.  The 
new  rulers  were  busy  with  their  internal  affairs  at  first. 
By  the  time  of  the  Spanish-American  War,  however, 
they  had  found  their  stride  and  they  have  been  length 
ening  it  ever  since. 

We  had  scarcely  reduced  the  Philippines  to  subjec 
tion  when  the  Roosevelt  administration  became  in 
volved  in  the  taking  of  Panama,  one  of  the  most  infa 
mous  episodes  that  ever  disgraced  American  history. 

The  Republic  of  Colombia  is  situated  on  the  north 

339 


coast  of  South  America  and  embraced  the  whole  of  the 
Isthmus  of  Panama.  It  has  a  government  modeled 
after  that  of  the  United  States,  and  is  composed  of 
several  independent  states  having  governors  and  legis 
lative  bodies  of  their  own.  The  Isthmus  of  Panama 
was  the  State  of  Panama,  one  of  the  states  composing 
this  Republic  of  Colombia. 

In  1903,  while  Roosevelt  was  President,  he  negotiated 
with  the  French  company  that  held  the  franchise  for 
the  purchase  of  the  then  uncompleted  canal  across  the 
Isthmus  and  approached  the  Republic  of  Colombia  with 
an  offer  of  ten  million  dollars  if  they  would  cede  to  the 
United  States  a  strip  ten  miles  wide  across  the  Isthmus. 
The  cession  was  to  grant  sovereign  rights  and  thus  give 
the  United  States  exclusive  control  over  the  Canal.  At 
the  same  time  this  cession  would  cut  the  State  of  Pan 
ama  in  two.  Colombia  was  afraid  to  deal  with  us  for 
fear  that  we,  having  obtained  a  foothold  at  Panama, 
might  take  the  whole  country.  She  therefore  declined 
to  sell  the  Canal  Zone. 

Roosevelt  thereupon  sent  out  navy  and  our  marines 
to  Colon,  which  is  the  port  on  the  Gulf  side  of  the 
Isthmus  of  Panama,  and  secretly  notified  the  govern 
ment  of  the  State  of  Panama  that,  if  they  would  set  up 
a  republic  and  revolt  against  the  Republic  of  Colombia, 
he  would  give  them  the  ten  millions  of  dollars  for  the 
canal  strip,  and  would  also  see  that  Colombia  did  not 
send  any  troops  to  suppress  their  rebellion.  The  Gov 
ernor  of  Panama  agreed  to  this  arrangement,  and,  at 
the  proper  time,  started  a  rebellion  to  set  up  an  inde 
pendent  government. 

The  Republic  of  Colombia  sent  sufficient  troops  to 
overthrow  and  suppress  the  rebellion,  but  Roosevelt 
had  instructed  the  officers  in  control  of  the  American 
marines  not  to  allow  Colombia  to  land  any  troops  in 
Panama  or  to  interfere  with  what  went  on  there.  Pur 
suant  to  their  instructions,  our  officers  refused  to  allow 
the  Colombian  troops  to  proceed  to  the  scene  of  rebel- 

340 


lion,  but,   instead,   turned  them   back  and  compelled 
them  to  return  to  Colombia. 

On  November  2,  1903,  the  Department  of  State  at 
Washington  telegraphed  the  naval  authorities  at  the 
Isthmus  as  follows: 

"  (a)  Keep  the  transit  free  and  uninterrupted.  Should 
there  be  a  threat  of  interruption  by  armed  force,  oc 
cupy  the  railroad  line;  prevent  the  landing  of  any 
armed  force  having  hostile  intentions,  whether  the 
government  or  insurgent,  at  Colon,  Portobelo,  or  any 
other  point.  Prevent  landing  if  in  your  judgment  it 
might  precipitate  a  conflict. 

"(b)  In  case  of  doubt  regarding  the  intentions  of 
any  armed  force,  occupy  Ancon  Hill  and  fortify  it  with 
artillery." 

About  3:40  P.  M.  on  November  3,  1903,  Loomis,  Act 
ing  Secretary  of  State,  sent  the  following  telegram  to 
the  person  in  charge  of  the  United  States  consulate  at 
Panama : 

"We  are  informed  that  there  has  been  an  uprising 
on  the  Isthmus;  keep  this  department  informed  of 
everything  without  delay."  The  Consul  of  the  United 
States  answered  on  the  same  day:  "The  uprising  has 
not  occurred  yet ;  it  is  announced  that  it  will  take  place 
this  evening.  The  situation  is  critical."* 

Later  on  the  same  day  (November  3)  at  about  nine 
o'clock,  Loomis  sent  the  following  telegram  to  the 
United  States  consulate  at  Panama:  "Troops  which 
landed  from  Cartagena  must  not  continue  to  Panama." 

At  10:30  the  same  day,  another  telegram  was  sent 
to  the  same  official :  "If  the  cablegram  to  the  Nashville 
(one  of  the  war  vessels  then  at  Panama)  has  not  been 
delivered,  inform  her  captain  immediately  that  he  must 
prevent  the  government  troops  from  continuing  on  to 


*  This  correspondence  will  be  found  in  House  Document  8, 
58th  Congress,  1st  Session,  which  contains  the  official  correspon 
dence  connected  with  the  Panama  Revolution  of  1903. 

341 


Panama  or  from  assuming  an  attitude  which  might  re 
sult  in  bloodshed/* 

On  the  same  day,  November  3,  the  following  telo- 
gram  was  sent  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  by  the 
commander  of  one  of  the  war  vessels  stationed  at 
Colon : 

"I  acknowledge  receipt  of  your  telegram  of  Novem 
ber  2  (above  referred  to).  Before  receiving  it,  there 
were  landed  here  this  morning  by  the  Colombian  gov 
ernment  about  four  hundred  from  Cartagena.  Thera 
is  no  revolution  on  the  Isthmus,  nor  any  disturbance. 
It  is  possible  that  the  movement  to  proclaim  indepen 
dence  may  take  place  in  Panama  this  evening." 

At  about  10  o'clock  P.  M.  of  the  same  day,  the  De 
partment  of  State  at  Washington  received  from  the 
Vice-Consul  of  the  United  States  in  Panama  the  fol 
lowing  telegram:  "The  revolt  took  place  this  evening  at 
six;  there  has  been  no  bloodshed.  The  government 
will  be  organized  this  evening  and  will  be  composed  of 
three  consuls  and  a  cabinet.  It  is  believed  that  a  simi 
lar  movement  will  take  place  in  Colon." 

On  the  same  day  General  Tovar  arrived  at  Colon  with 
a  battalion  of  sharpshooters  from  the  Colombian  army, 
a  force  more  than  adequate  to  handle  the  uprising  on 
the  Isthmus. 

On  the  following  day,  November  4,  Hubbard,  com 
mander  of  one  of  our  war  vessels  at  Colon,  sent  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  the  following  dispatch:  "Gov 
ernment  troops  (Colombian)  now  at  Colon.  I  have 
prohibited  the  movement  of  troops  in  either  direction. 
There  has  been  no  interruption  of  transit  yet.  I  shall 
make  every  effort  to  preserve  peace  and  order." 

On  November  6,  the  Secretary  of  State  at  Washing 
ton,  telegraphed  to  the  Vice-Consul  in  Panama  in  the 
following  terms :  "The  people  of  Panama  by  an  appar 
ently  unanimous  movement  have  severed  their  political 
bonds  with  the  Republic  of  Colombia  and  have  assumed 
their  independence.  As  soon  as  you  are  convinced  that 
a  de  facto  government,  republican  in  form  and  without 

342 


substantial  opposition  on  the  part  of  its  own  people, 
has  been  established  on  the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  you 
will  enter  into  relations  with  it  as  the  responsible  gov 
ernment  of  the  territory." 

Here,  then,  was  a  rebellion  by  one  state  against  a 
sister  republic — a  rebellion  which  we  helped  to  organ 
ize,  a  rebellion  which  was  assisted  by  our  troops  and 
navy,  which  were  sent  in  advance  to  help  make  the  re 
bellion  a  success.  Is  there  any  more  glaring  chapter 
of  infamous  conduct  in  the  treatment  of  one  nation 
by  another  than  this  proceeding  on  the  part  of  the 
United  States?  I  know  of  nothing  that  parallels  it  in 
its  infamy  except  the  annexation  of  Texas,  the  acquisi 
tion  of  Hawaii  and  of  the  Philippines. 

Let  me  cite  one  more  illustration  of  the  imperialistic 
methods  employed  by  the  United  States  in  its  recent 
dealings  with  Latin-America.  Central  America  is  a 
country  about  four  times  as  large  as  the  state  of  Ohio, 
and  has  a  population  of  a  little  over  five  million  people. 
The  country  is  divided  into  five  republics — Guatemala, 
Honduras,  Salvador,  Nicaragua  and  Costa  Rica.  Dur 
ing  Taft's  administration  the  United  States  intervened 
during  a  difficulty  between  some  of  the  Central  Ameri 
can  states,  in  which  Nicaragua  was  involved.  The 
United  States  thereupon  said:  "Let  us  have  a  confer 
ence,"  and  the  result  was  that  all  of  the  states  of  Cen 
tral  America  except  Nicaragua  sent  delegates  to  Costa 
Rica  to  attend  the  conference,  the  object  of  which  was 
to  make  perpetual  peace  in  Central  America. 

The  president  of  Nicaragua  refused  to  send  a  dele 
gate  because  the  conference  had  been  called  by  the 
United  States,  and  he  would  not  recognize  the  right  of 
the  United  States  to  interfere  in  Central  American  af 
fairs.  Thereupon  the  United  States  sent  down  troops 
and  drove  him  out  of  office  and  put  a  puppet  in  his 
place.  Afterwards  a  meeting  was  held  in  Washington 
of  the  Central  American  states,  and  Nicaragua  partici 
pated. 

At  that  meeting  a  League  of  Nations  was  formed  of 

343 


the  Central  American  republics,  and  it  was  agreed  ,o 
arbitrate  all  their  differences  and  thus  to  end  war  for 
ever.  There  was  to  be  an  international  court  to  decide 
the  international  problems  of  Central  America.  Car 
negie  hailed  the  proposition  with  delight,  and  furnished 
one  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  build  a  marble  peace 
building  in  Costa  Rica. 

Meanwhile,  the  puppet  we  had  set  up  in  the  place  cf 
the  duly  elected  president  of  Nicaragua  began  looting 
the  treasury  of  Nicaragua,  and  was  finally  forced  to 
borrow  money.  The  United  States  Government  there 
upon  notified  their  puppet  that  the  New  York  bankers 
would  let  him  have  all  the  money  he  wanted. 

In  1912  the  people  of  Nicaragua  revolted  against  th>3 
government  .set  up  by  us,  and  in  order  to  support  our 
man  in  authority  we  landed  marines  in  the  capital  of: 
Nicaragua,  and  we  have  kept  them  there,  and  our 
creatures  have  been  ruling  there  ever  since.  Nicaragua 
contracted  further  debts,  until  at  last  they  could  nor, 
meet  their  interest  payments. 

In  1916  Nicaragua  was  very  hard  up,  and  we  said  tc< 
her:  "Your  case  is  practically  hopeless.  You  cannot 
pay  interest  on  your  debt.  The  United  States  may 
,some  time  want  to  build  a  canal  up  the  San  Juan  River 
and  through  Lake  Nicaragua  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  Give 
us  the  San  Juan  River  and  the  lake,  with  the  privilege 
of  building  the  canal  when  we  get  ready  to  do  it,  and 
give  us  that  splendid  bay  of  Fonesca,  and  a  little  island 
for  a  naval  base,  and  we  will  loan  you  the  money  to 
pay  your  interest  and  put  things  on  a  new  basis."  The 
result  was  that  Nicaragua,  having  a  president  of  our 
choice,  maintained  by  our  blue  jackets,  said:  "Very 
good.  We  will  give  you  the  right  of  way  and  we  will 
.sell  you  the  island,  and  will  take  the  funds  to  pay  the 
interest  on  the  money  we  owe  you." 

Costa  Rica  claimed  a  partial  right  in  the  San  Juan 
River,  which  is  the  boundary  between  the  two  nations. 
We  were  therefore  proposing  to  purchase  from  Nica 
ragua  a  part  of  the  territory  belonging  to  Costa  Rica. 

344 


There  was  a  long  debate  over  the  subject,  and  it  was 
finally  appealed  to  the  United  States  during  the  admin 
istration  of  Grover  Cleveland.  Cleveland  was  the  judge 
and  gave  a  clear-cut  decision  that  was  just  and  equit 
able  and  satisfactory  to  all  parties. 

Another  nation  now  came  into  the  case — San  Sal 
vador.  The  Gulf  of  Fonesca  abuts  Nicaragua  and  it 
abuts  San  Salvador.  An  island  in  that  bay  commands 
the  shores  of  San  Salvador,  and  San  Salvodar  said :  "We 
object  to  giving  away  any  naval  base  in  Fonesca  Bay, 
even  to  the  United  States,  because  it  threatens  our 
coast."  So  the  case  came  before  the  court  at  Costa 
Rica — before  the  League  of  Nations — and  was  thor 
oughly  considered  and  a  decision  rendered,  which  was 
against  Nicaragua  and  the  United  States  and  in  favor 
of  San  Salvador  and  Costa  Rica.  Yet,  Nicaragua, 
backed  by  the  United  States,  refused  to  recognize  the 
decision  of  the  court.  The  League  of  Nations,  formed 
to  secure  perpetual  peace,  vanished  into  thin  air. 

In  1917  the  president  of  Costa  Rica  was  overthrown, 
and  another  president  took  his  place.  The  matter  was 
referred  to  President  Wilson,  and  he  refused  to  recog 
nize  the  rebellion  which  had  occurred  over  the  question 
of  an  election  during  which  it  appears  that  Timco,  the 
new  president,  represented  the  majority  of  the  people. 
At  any  rate,  the  matter  was  purely  a  local  one.  But 
Wilson  said,  "I  will  not  recognize  him."  Thereupon,  the 
Costa  Rica  Congress  met  and  recognized  the  adminis 
tration  of  the  new  president;  but  Wilson  still  refused, 
although  the  new  president  had  been  recognized  by 
every  Latin-American  country  except  Panama,  Nica 
ragua  and  Cuba — all  three  dominated  by  the  President 
of  the  United  States. 

Recently  we  have  purchased  the  Danish  West  Indies, 
which  lie  on  the  ocean  side  of  the  Caribbean  Sea,  with 
out  asking  the  consent  of  the  people  living  there.  We 
have  taken  over  Santo  Domingo ;  we  collect  the  customs 
of  the  country;  the  finest  building  in  the  republic  is 
our  customs  house,  built  with  Dominican  money  by 

345 


Americans  and  officered  by  Americans.  Haiti,  the  other 
half  of  the  island,  without  any  declaration  of  war  by 
the  United  States  Congress,  was  seized  by  President 
Wilson  and  is  now  being  administered  in  every  detail  by 
the  United  States.  The  excuse  given  for  this  action 
by  the  Wilson  administration  was  that  the  Republic  of 
Haiti  owed  money  to  the  National  City  Bank  of  New 
York.  On  their  account  the  United  States  invaded  the 
island,  placed  it  under  martial  law,  suppressed  the 
newspapers,  dispersed  the  legislative  assembly,  domi 
nated  the  elections  and  murdered  several  thousands  of 
the  people.* 

The  Declaration  of  Independence  holds  that  "All  men 
are  created  equal;  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Cre 
ator  with  certain  inalienable  rights;  that  among  them 
are  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  That  to 
secure  these  rights,  governments  are  instituted  among 
men,  deriving  their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  tha 
governed."  I  should  like  to  call  Jefferson  as  a  witness 
and  have  him  tell  us  what  he  thinks  of  these  disgusting 
perversions  of  American  foreign  policy. 

Again  and  again  the  United  States  has  fastened  itn 
eyes  on  a  desirable  piece  of  territory  and  then  sent  its 
armies  to  fulfill  its  territorial  ambitions.  Again  and 
again  the  American  flag  has  floated  over  battlefields 
where  the  victors  were  invaders  from  the  United 
States,  while  the  men,  fighting  desperately  in  defense 
of  their  homes,  their  children  and  their  liberties,  were 
the  inhabitants  of  small,  weak,  defenseless  countries 
that  could  not  stand  before  the  organized  might  at  the 
disposal  of  the  great  northern  empire. 

The  essence  of  imperialism  is  the  extension,  by  armed 
force,  of  the  rule  of  one  people  over  another — as  we 
extend  our  rule  over  the  southwest;  over  the  Philip 
pines  ;  over  Haiti  and  over  Nicaragua.  Such  armed  con- 


*  General  Barnett  placed  the  number  killed  by  the  American 
forces  at  3,250. 

346 


quest  is  recorded  among  the  acts  of  imperialists  in 
every  age.  During  the  past  two  generations  pur  Amer 
ican  imperialists  have  greatly  extended  the  list. 

One  annexation  leads  to  another  annexation.  One 
act  of  aggression  is  followed  by  a  second.  The  prin 
ciple  of  expansion  established  by  Jefferson,  and  which 
he  considered  to  be  "beyond  the  Constitution,"  is  ac 
claimed  by  Roosevelt  with  enthusiasm.  Meanwhile, 
Roosevelt,  who  boasted  of  the  taking  of  Panama  from 
Colombia,  scores  "the  feeble  diplomacy  of  Jefferson's 
administration"  (Winning  of  the  West,  Vol.  VI,  p.  261) 
and  refers  to  Jefferson  and  Madison  as  "peaceful  men, 
quite  unfitted  to  grapple  with  an  enemy  who  expressed 
himself  through  deeds  rather  than  words,"  and  as 
"two  timid,  well-meaning  statesmen."  (Ibid.  p.  271.) 
In  1803  the  Constitution  was  still  virile  and  respected. 
Even  a  President  of  the  United  States  hesitated  to 
transgress  it.  Exactly  a  century  later  a  President 
could  act  as  Roosevelt  acted  in  Panama ;  could  consider 
himself  an  exemplary  American,  and  could  taunt  those 
who  had  tried  to  observe  the  Constitution  during  an 
earlier  generation  with  being  "peaceful,"  "timid,"  and 
"well-meaning." 

Between  Jefferson's  hesitancy  over  the  purchase  of 
Louisiana  in  1803  (a  contiguous  territory)  and  Roose 
velt's  eager  seizure  of  Panama  in  1903,  there  stretched 
a  century  that  witnessed  a  slow,  but  steady  shifting 
from  the  principles  of  Jefferson  and  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  to  the  principles  of  Caesar,  Napoleon, 
McKinley,  Roosevelt,  Wilson,  the  Platt  Amendment  and 
the  Peace  Treaty  of  Versailles. 

Since  the  annexation  of  Hawaii  in  1898  the  United 
States  has  been  speeding  away  from  her  old  policies; 
abandoning  her  old  positions  and  devoting  herself  to  a 
venture  in  imperialism  that  drags  her  down  to  the  level 
of  the  British  Empire,  the  Japanese  Empire,  the  Roman 
Empire,  the  great  empire  of  Alexander,  or  of  any  other 
conquering  people,  past  or  present. 


347 


XXVI.     BENEVOLENT  ASSIMILATION 

During  the  five  eventful  years  that  intervened  be 
tween  the  Hawaiian.  Revolution  and  the  passage  of 
the  treaty  of  annexation,  I  did  all  that  a  man  could  do 
to  prevent  the  American  people  from  taking  this  fatal 
step.  As  a  reward  for  my  efforts  I  was  denounced, 
vilified  and  condemned.  The  lawyers  in  the  Senate;, 
representing  the  business  interests  that  were  seeking 
the  ratification  of  the  treaty,  put  everything  possible 
in  the  way  of  my  work.  Still  I  succeeded  in  blocking 
the  ratification  of  the  treaty  for  five  years.  Then  came 
the  break  with  Spain.  When  the  Spanish  War  fever 
swept  the  country  I  knew  that  the  fight  on  the  Ha 
waiian  Treaty  was  lost.  Since  that  day  in  July,  1898, 
when  the  Hawaiian  Treaty  was  ratified,  for  twenty-two 
years  I  have  watched  the  progress  of  the  United  States 
along  the  path  of  empire.  Through  these  years,  like 
wise,  I  have  done  what  I  could  to  bring  the  real  facts 
of  the  situation  to  the  attention  of  the  American  peo 
ple.  It  may  be  too  late  to  save  them  from  the  fate  that 
hangs  over  them,  but  at  least  I  want  them  to  know 
where  they  are  going,  and  why. 

I  want  the  American  people  to  know  what  to  say 
when  they  are  told  that  United  States  business  men 
and  United  States  soldiers  are  in  the  Philippines,  Porto 
Rico,  Santo  Domingo  and  Panama  to  bless  the  inhabit 
ants  of  these  countries.  I  want  them  to  know  that  it 
is  an  oft-repeated  story — the  plea  of  "helping  the  back 
ward  nations." 

The  cry  that  wre  have  entered  upon  our  imperial 
course  in  order  to  benefit  the  native  populations  in  the 
lands  that  we  have  conquered  or  annexed  is  an  old  one. 
Dickens  personified  it  splendidly  in  his  character,  the 
Reverend  Mr.  Chadband.  Dickens'  description  of  the 
encounter  between  the  reverend  gentleman  and  a  street 
waif  is  as  follows : 

"Stretching  forth  his  flabby  paw,  Mr.  Chadband  lays 
the  same  on  Jo's  arm  and  considers  where  to  station 

348 


him.  Jo,  very  doubtful  of  his  reverend  friend's  inten 
tions  and  not  at  all  clear  but  that  something  practical 
and  painful  is  going  to  be  done  to  him,  mutters,  'You 
let  me  alone.  I  never  said  nothing  to  you.  You  let  me 
alone.' 

"  'No,  my  young  friend,'  says  Chadband,  smoothly, 
'I  will  not  let  you  alone.  And  why?  Because  I  am  a 
harvest  laborer,  because  I  am  a  toiler  and  a  moiler, 
because  you  are  delivered  over  unto  me  and  are  become 
as  a  precious  instrument  in  my  hands.  My  friends, 
may  1  so  employ  this  instrument  as  to  use  it  to  your 
advantage,  to  your  profit,  to  your  gain,  to  your  wel 
fare,  to  your  enrichment.  My  young  friend,  sit  upon 
this  stool.' 

"Jo,  apparently  possessed  by  an  impression  that  the 
reverend  gentleman  wants  to  cut  his  hair,  shields  his 
head  with  both  arms." 

How  well  Dickens  knew  human  nature !  How  char 
acteristically  he  describes  the  crafty  gentry  who  use 
fair  words  to  cover  up  foul  deeds.  Had  he  lived  today 
and  watched  the  practice  of  American  imperialism,  he 
would  have  been  satisfied  to  let  Mr.  Chadband  give  way 
before  his  betters. 

T  have  before  me  McKinley's  proclamation  to  the 
Filipinos,  and  I  have  placed  it  side  by  side  with  a  proc 
lamation  of  the  King  of  Assyria,  written  eighteen  hun 
dred  years  before  Christ.  A  man  would  think  that 
McKinley  had  plagiarized  the  idea  from  Asshurbanipal. 

Ragozin,  in  his  History  of  Assyria,  gives  a  literal 
translation  of  a  proclamation  issued  by  Asshurbanipal 
to  the  people  of  Elam.  The  Elamites  had  gone  to  war. 
Rather,  their  country  had  been  invaded  by  Asshurbani- 
pal's  forces,  which  had  overrun  the  land,  cut  down  the 
trees,  filled  up  the  wells  and  killed  the  inhabitants. 
Asshurbanipal  captured  the  capital  city  of  the  Elam 
ites,  killed  their  king,  took  208,000  of  their  people  into 
captivity  as  slaves,  drove  off  most  of  the  cattle  belong 
ing  to  those  that  were  left,  and  then  sent  them  this 
affectionate  greeting: 

349 


"The  will  of  the  king  to  the  men  of  the  coast,  the  sea, 
the  sons  of  my  servants. 

"My  peace  to  your  hearts ;  may  you  be  well. 

"I  am  watching  over  you,  and  from  the  sin  of  your 
king,  Nabubelzikri,  I  separated  you.  Now  I  send  you 
my  servant  Belibni  to  be  my  deputy  over  you ;  I  have 
joined  with  you,  keeping  your  good  and  your  benefit  in 
my  sight." 

McKinley  writes  to  the  Filipinos : 

"Finally,  it  should  be  the  earnest  and  paramount  aim 
of  the  administration  to  win  the  confidence,  respect  and 
affection  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  Philippines  by  insur 
ing  to  them  in  every  possible  way  the  full  measure  of 
individual  rights  and  liberties  which  is  the  heritage  of 
a  free  people,  and  by  proving  to  them  that  the  mission 
oi  the  United  States  is  one  of  benevolent  assimilation, 
which  will  substitute  the  mild  sway  of  justice  and  right 
for  arbitrary  rule.  In  the  fulfillment  of  this  high  mis 
sion,  while  upholding  the  temporary  administration  of 
affairs  for  the  greatest  good  of  the  governed,  there  will 
be  sedulously  maintained  the  strong  arm  of  authority 
to  repress  disturbance  and  to  overcome  all  obstacles 
to  the  bestowal  of  good  and  stable  government  upon  the 
people  of  the  Philippine  Islands." 

This  reads  very  much  like  King  George  III  of  Great 
Britain,  who  said,  with  reference  to  the  rebellious 
American  colonists: 

"I  am  desirous  of  restoring  to  them  the  blessings  of 
law  and  liberty  equally  enjoyed  by  every  British  sub 
ject,  which  they  have  fatally  and  desperately  ex 
changed  for  the  calamities  of  war  and  the  arbitrary 
tyranny  of  their  chiefs." 

Every  conqueror,  every  tyrant,  every  oppressor, 
utters  .just  such  pious  phrases  to  justify  his  course  of 
action.  The  English-speaking  people  are  particularly 
adept  at  this  form  of  hypocrisy.  Each  act  of  aggres 
sion,  each  new  expedition  of  conquest  is  prefaced  by  a 
pronouncement  containing  a  moral  justification  and  an 

350 


assurance  to  the  victims  of  the  imperial  aggression  that 
all  is  being  done  for  their  benefit. 

What  are  we  about  in  the  United  States?  Why  this 
rush  to  control  the  Philippines,  Haiti,  Costa  Rica?  The 
answer  can  be  given  in  one  word — exploitation !  It  is 
the  search  for  markets;  the  search  for  trade;  the 
search  for  foreign  investment  opportunities  that  is 
leading  us  to  the  South  and  to  the  East.  The  plutoc 
racy  is  after  more  profits — that  is  the  cause  behind 
American  imperialism. 

The  imperialists'  aim  is  to  assimilate,  not  the  people 
of  these  possessions,  but  their  lands  and  their  wealth. 
If  the  people  will  work,  the  American  plutocrats  will 
exploit  their  labor  as  well  as  the  resources  of  their 
respective  countries.  If  the  people  refuse  to  work,  they 
will  be  brushed  aside,  and  men  and  women  who  will  be 
more  amenable  to  discipline  will  be  imported  from 
some  other  country  to  take  their  places.  Who  was 
responsible  for  the  Hawaiian  revolution  and  for  the 
subsequent  annexation  to  the  United  States?  The 
American  and  other  capitalists  who  had  gained  posses 
sion  of  the  best  land  on  the  islands.  What  interests 
led  the  State  Department  to  interfere  in  Haiti  and  in 
Nicaragua?  The  same  business  forces.  Imperialism 
is  imperialism  the  world  over.  Occasionally  it  is  suffi 
ciently  enlighted  to  have  some  regard  for  the  welfare 
of  the  exploited  populations.  At  other  times  it  is  as 
blind  and  ignorant  and  ferocious  as  the  policy  of  the 
British  imperialists  in  China. 

I  spent  a  portion  of  the  year  1898  in  China  and 
Japan,  traveling  extensively  over  both  empires.  At 
first  hand,  and  from  the  best  authority,  I  learned  the 
policy  that  the  British  Government  had  pursued  with 
regard  to  the  traffic  in  opium,  and  I  submit  it  as  an 
excellent  example  of  the  way  in  which  the  empire 
builders  act  where  they  have  an  opportunity  to  make 
profits  out  of  the  wretchedness  and  suffering  of  a 
weaker  people. 

In  Pekin,  I  had  several  conferences  with  Li  Hung 

351 


Chang,  who  was  then  an  old  man,  having  been  the  vir 
tual  ruler  of  China  for  very  many  years  under  the 
Empress  Dowager.  In  one  of  the  conferences  I  asked 
Li  Hung  Chang  why  he  did  not  stamp  out  opinm  smok 
ing  in  China.  He  replied  that  he  could  not  because  the 
English  Government  refused  to  allow  the  Chinese  to 
interfere  with  the  trade.  He  then  told  me  that  in  some 
of  the  provinces  of  China  (for  China  is  divided  into  a 
number  of  States)  the  Governors  were  raising  poppies 
and  making  opium,  in  order  to  beat  the  English  out  of 
the  trade  in  China.  He  said  that  he  had  tried  to  secure 
an  agreement  with  the  English  under  which  he  was  to 
stop  the  raising  of  poppies  in  China  provided  the 
English  would  stop  importing  opium.  This  he  had 
been  unable  to  do,  as  the  trade  in  opium  was  an  Eng 
lish  monopoly  conducted  by  the  Government  itself. 

According  to  his  statement,  the  English  had  set 
apart  a  million  acres  of  the  best  land  in  India  for  the 
purpose  of  raising  poppies,  and  had  compelled  the 
people  of  India  to  raise  the  poppies  and  sell  the  product 
exclusively  to  the  English  Government.  The  English 
had  built  a  factorjr  to  manufacture  the  opium,  and 
every  package  that  left  the  factory  was  decorated  with 
the  coat  of  arms  of  Queen  Victoria.  Opium  was  little 
used  in  China  until  the  English  introduced  it  early  in 
the  nineteenth  century.  The  Emperor  had  protested 
against  the  opium  trade,  but  the  English  Government 
insisted  upon  its  right  to  sell  opium  to  the  Chinese. 
Finally,  the  Emperor  of  China  sent  his  men  aboard 
some  English  ships  that  were  lying,  loaded  with  opium, 
in  the  harbor  of  Canton  and  threw  the  poison  into  the 
sea.  Seventy  years  earlier  the  American  colonists  had 
set  the  precedent  for  this  Canton  opium  party  by  going 
aboard  the  British  ships  in  Boston  Harbor  and  throw 
ing  the  tea  overboard.  Today  the  anniversary  of  the 
"Boston  Tea  Party"  is  one  of  the  fete  days  of  the  people 
of  New  England.  The  British  liked  the  exploit  as  little 
as  the  other,  however,  and  they  began  a  war  with  China 
(1840).  This  war,  sometimes  called  the  First  Opium 

352 


War,  went  against  China,  and  she  was  compelled  to 
cede  Hongkong  to  the  British,  to  open  four  other  ports 
to  British  trade,  and  to  pay  an  indemnity  of  5,525,000 
pounds  sterling  into  the  British  Treasury.  The  matter 
came  in  for  a  good  deal  of  comment  in  Parliament,  but 
eventually  it  was  dropped.*  In  1857  a  new  controversy 
arose,  and  the  Emperor  again  undertook  to  exclude 
English  opium,  giving  as  the  reason  that  it  was  de 
stroying  his  people;  that  the  drug  was  a  deadly  drug 
and  was  causing  great  injury,  and  he  enacted  laws 
making  it  a  criminal  offense  for  the  people  of  China  to 
smoke  opium,  or  for  anyone  to  import  the  drug.  In 
connection  with  this  campaign  he  confiscated  the  opium 
that  the  English  had  already  imported  and  imprisoned 
the  people  who  handled  it. 

England  thereupon  declared  another  war  upon  China 
which  was  called  the  Second  Opium  War  (1858-1862). 
Again  China  was  defeated.  Canton  was  bombarded; 
Pekin  was  threatened ;  and,  after  a  disastrous  struggle, 
the  Chinese  made  a  treaty  under  which  several  new 
ports  were  opened  to  British  trade;  a  British  Ambas 
sador  was  received  at  Pekin,  and  China  paid  an  indem 
nity  of  4,000,000  pounds  sterling  to  the  British.  After 
each  war,  the  British  were  able  to  bring  opium  into  a 
few  more  Chinese  ports. 

Li  Hung  Chang  spoke  with  great  bitterness  of  this 
conduct  on  the  part  of  a  so-called  Christian  nation,  and 
went  quite  largely  into  the  question  of  the  injurious 
use  of  opium.  He  also  presented  me  with  a  copy  of  the 
treaty  made  between  China  and  Japan  after  the  China- 
Japanese  War,  which  had  occurred  only  a  few  years 
before  I  visited  Pekin.  This  treaty  was  written  in 
English  and  Chinese,  and  the  book  handed  me  con- 


*  "Ashley  even  brought  forward  a  resolution  for  the  suppres 
sion  of  the  opium  trade,  but  withdrew  it  after  a  debate  turning 
on  the  inability  of  the  Indian  Government  to  part  with  a  revenue 
of  1,000,000  pounds  sterling  or  more." — The  History  of  England. 
Sydney  Law  and  L.  C.  Sanders.  Longmans.  1913,  Vol.  12,  p.  41. 

353 


tained  Li  Hung  Chang's  picture  and  autograph,  and  the 
entire  record  of  the  conversations  held  at  Shimonoseki 
between  the  ruler  of  China  and  Count  Ito,  the  repre 
sentative  of  Japan. 

The  terms  of  the  treaty  compelled  China  to  cede  to 
Japan  the  Island  of  Formosa,  which  had  an  area  of 
13,000  square  miles,  and  was  inhabited  by  four  million 
Chinamen.  In  the  conversation  which  preceded  this 
treaty,  Count  Ito  asked  Li  Hung  Chang  why  he  did  not 
stamp  out  the  opium  traffic  in  China,  as  he  had  prom 
ised  to  do  at  Tientsin  ten  years  before.  Li  Hung  Chang 
answered  that  he  could  not  do  it  because  the  English 
Government  would  not  allow  it.  "Furthermore,"  said 
he  to  Count  Ito,  "if  you  take  the  island  of  Formosa  and 
stop  opium  smoking,  it  will  result  in  a  war  with  Eng 
land."  To  this  Ito  replied:  "That  may  be  true,  but 
we  will  stamp  out  opium  smoking  even  if  it  does  result 
in  war." 

When  I  heard  that  story,  told  impressively  by  a 
member  of  the  race  that  had  suffered  such  wrong  at  the 
hands  of  British  imperialism,  I  could  not  help  compar 
ing  it  in  my  mind  with  the  participation  of  America  in 
the  slave  trade,  and  wondering  what  new  infamies  the 
imperialist  policy  in  which  we  were  then,  and  still  are 
engaged,  would  lead  us  to  in  the  course  of  the  present 
century. 

The  British  had  nothing  against  the  Chinese.  They 
sold  them  opium  because  there  was  money  in  it.  If 
there  had  been  no  profits  in  the  trade  there  would  have 
been  no  opium  war.  Our  imperial  ventures,  like  those 
of  the  British,  are  financial.  We  are  in  the  imperialist 
business  because  it  pays  the  plutocrats  to  be  there. 

I  never  realized  this  so  completely  as  in  the  winter 
of  1900,  when  a  delegation  from  Porto  Rico  visited  the 
city  of  Washington  for  the  purpose  of  having  the 
products  of  Porto  Rico  admitted  free  of  duty  to  the 
United  States.  The  delegation  came  before  the  Commit 
tee  on  Insular  Affairs,  of  which  I  was  then  chairman, 
and  asked  for  a  hearing.  I  therefore  called  the  mem- 

354 


bers  of  the  committee  together  so  that  they  might  hear 
the  Porto  Rican  delegation  present  its  case. 

There  were  five  members  in  the  delegation — two 
Englishmen,  two  Spaniards  and  a  Frenchman.  I  had 
one  of  the  Englishmen  take  the  stand  first  and  asked 
him  what  it  was  he  desired  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States  to  do.  He  answered  that  the  delegation  desired 
to  have  the  products  of  Porto  Rico — sugar,  tobacco  and 
tropical  fruits — admitted  to  the  United  States  free  of 
duty. 

I  then  asked  him.  "Are  you  a  citizen  of  the  United 
States?" 

"No,"  was  his  reply.  "I  am  a  citizen  of  England, 
but  a  resident  of  the  United  States." 

"Are  you  going  to  become  a  citizen  of  the  United 
States?"  I  asked.  He  replied  that  he  was  not. 

I  then  asked  what  interest  he  had  in  Porto  Rico.  He 
answered  that  he  owned  200,000  acres  of  land. 

"You  are  working  your  land  at  the  present  time?"  I 
asked. 

"Not  to  any  great  extent,"  he  replied.  He  then  ex 
plained  that  the  land  could  raise  great  crops  of  sugar 
that  might  very  nearly  supply  the  United  States  if  the 
industry  were  encouraged  by  having  the  sugar  admit 
ted  free  of  duty. 

In  answer  to  a  question  about  the  people  that  were 
occupying  his  lands  in  Porto  Rico,  the  Englishman 
explained  that  they  were  "natives." 

"Are  they  your  tenants?"  I  said  to  him.  "Do  they 
rent  the  land  from  you?" 

"Yes,"  he  answered.  "They  live  in  single-room 
houses  as  a  rule,  elevated  from  the  ground  on  posts, 
one  post  at  each  corner.  As  a  rule  the  houses  are  from 
six  to  eight  feet  from  the  ground."  He  then  told  us 
how  the  natives  built  a  floor  on  top  of  these  posts  and 
then  made  a  palm-leaf  hut  in  which  they  resided.  For 
support  they  planted  yams  and  dry-land  bananas  and 
raised  chickens  and  pigs.  They  paid  their  rent  for  the 

355 


use  of  the  land  by  a  certain  number  of  days'  work  on 
the  Englishman's  plantation. 

To  my  question  as  to  the  character  of  the  people,  he 
replied  that  they  were  "good  people."  When  I  asked 
him  whether  they  could  read  or  write,  he  said  they 
could  not,  since  there  were  no  provisions  on  the  island 
for  their  education. 

I  then  put  the  other  Englishman  on  the  stand.  He 
told  the  same  story.  After  that  I  questioned  the  two 
Spaniards  and  the  Frenchman.  They  all  owned  several 
hundred  thousand  acres  of  land,  which  were  being  used 
more  or  less  in  the  way  already  described.  All  spoke 
of  the  native  inhabitants  as  "good  people,"  as  mostly 
white  people,  and  as  entirely  illiterate. 

I  asked  if  there  were  any  of  the  natives  who  owned 
their  own  land.  All  agreed  that  there  were  very  few 
such. 

After  I  had  taken  their  testimony  in  full,  and  had 
showed  up  the  enormities  of  the  economic  system  then 
existing  in  Porto  Rico,  I  told  them  that  the  hearing  was 
closed;  that  as  long  as  I  remained  chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Insular  Affairs  they  would  get  no  legis 
lation  enacted  admitting  their  product  free  of  duty; 
that  if  I  could  have  my  way  about  it  I  would  cancel 
their  title  to  every  acre  of  the  lands  of  Porto  Rico  and 
make  the  title  out  to  the  people  of  the  United  States. 
That  I  would  then  give  an  inalienable  title  to  every 
person  in  Porto  Rico  for  all  the  land  that  he  could 
actually  use,  and  levy  taxes  upon  them  for  the  com 
pulsory  education  of  their  children. 

"  What !"  they  exclaimed.  "Take  our  property  with 
out  paying  us  for  it?" 

"It  is  not  your  property,"  I  answered.  "The  land  of 
Porto  Rico  belongs  to  the  people  who  inhabit  it  and 
who  work  it.  I  would  not  pay  you  a  dollar  for  your 
pretended  title  or  allow  you  to  remain  there  for  one 
day  to  exploit  the  inhabitants  of  that  island  or  to  hold 
a  single  acre  of  that  land  in  excess  of  the  amount  actu 
ally  occupied  and  cultivated  by  you  in  person." 

356 


Of  course,  when  my  term  of  office  expired  in  1901 
these  foreign  highwaymen,  waiting  to  prey  upon  the 
people  of  Porto  Rico,  returned  to  Washington  and 
secured  the  legislation  they  desired.  They  also  secured 
control  of  the  Government  of  Porto  Rico,  and  made 
arrangements  for  a  large  armed  police  force  to  pre 
serve  law  and  order.  They  also  appealed  to  Congress 
to  put  a  duty  on  Cuban  sugar  in  order  to  prevent  it 
from  competing  with  Porto  Rican  sugar.  They  then 
returned  to  the  islands  and  began  their  work  of  "eco 
nomic  development." 

About  the  first  thing  they  did  was  to  cancel  the  leases 
of  the  inhabitants  who  occupied  the  land.  Then  they 
compelled  them  to  work  for  wages,  raising  sugar  and 
tobacco,  and  they  refused  them  the  use  of  any  land  to 
raise  yams,  bananas,  pigs  and  chickens,  and  they  fixed 
the  wages  at  50  cents  a  day  in  silver.  Little  provision 
was  made  for  the  education  of  the  people,  and  the 
wages  were  so  low  that,  with  their  large  families,  the 
laborers,  found  it  impossible  to  buy  adequate  food  and 
clothing.  Consequently,  their  children  grew  up  with 
out  clothes — ran  naked  in  the  fields  and  even  in  the 
towns — and  were  put  to  work  as  soon  as  they  grew 
old  enough  to  be  of  use. 

Shortly  after  this  beautiful  plan  of  "economic  devel 
opment"  was  put  in  effect,  the  owners  of  Porto  Rico 
began  to  boast  of  the  great  things  they  had  done  for 
the  people.  They  told  how  they  had  furnished  employ 
ment  ;  had  put  up  the  mills  and  factories  and  brought  in 
the  machinery  to  make  the  sugar  out  of  the  raw  cane, 
and  to  manufacture  the  tobacco,  so  that  Porto  Rico 
exported  §150,000,000  worth  of  the  product  per  annum 
to  the  United  States.  With  it  all,  the  miserable  peons 
of  Porto  Rico  went  naked  and  starving  in  one  of  the 
richest  spots  of  the  whole  world. 

After  the  first  few  crops  had  been  harvested,  the 
laborers  of  Porto  Rico  went  on  strike,  leaving  the  cane 
to  sour  in  the  field.  Thereupon  these  foreign  pirates, 
the  English,  the  Spanish,  the  French  and  the  American 

357 


planters,  called  in  the  police  force  and  the  armed  men 
of  the  United  States  and  shot  up  the  strikers  ard 
arrested  them  and  put  them  back  to  work  in  the  fields 
— those  they  had  not  wounded  or  murdered.  Thus, 
economic  development  pursued  its  imperial  course  in 
Porto  Rico,  where  conditions  are  as  bad  today  as  they 
were  when  we  took  possession  of  the  island  twenty-two 
years  ago,  and  always  will  remain  as  bad  until  the 
system  of  exploitation  at  home  and  abroad  is  aban 
doned  and  labor  is  given  its  just  reward. 

Lest  anyone  should  think  that  I  am  exaggerating,  I 
should  like  to  call  attention  to  a  report  recently  pub 
lished  by  the  United  States  Department  of  Labor,  giv 
ing  a  full  description  of  the  working  and  living  con 
ditions  in  Porto  Rico.  (Labor  Conditions  in  Porto 
Rico,  by  Joseph  Marcus,  Washington,  1919.)  The  spe 
cial  investigator  who  wrote  the  report  for  the  Labor 
Department,  as  a  result  of  a  careful  study  of  condi 
tions,  states  that : 

The  American  flag  has  been  flying  over  the  island  of 
Porto  Rico  for  twenty  years,  yet  the  percentage  of  illit 
eracy  is  still  abnormally  high.  During  the  years  1917 
and  1918  "only  142,846  children  out  of  a  total  of  427,- 
666  of  school  age  actually  enrolled  in  the  public 
schools."  "The  difficulty,"  says  Mr.  Marcus,  "lies  in 
the  bad  economic  condition"  in  which  the  worker  finds 
himself.  "Porto  Rico  is  an  island  of  wealthy  land  pro 
prietors  and  of  landless  workers.  There  is  a  law  in 
Porto  Rico  prohibiting  any  single  individual  from  own 
ing  more  than  500  acres  of  land.  *  *  *  With  the 
American  occupation  the  price  of  cane  land  rose  very 
high — from  thirty  to  three  hundred  dollars  per  acre — 
and  this  induced  many  a  small  holder  to  sell  his  land 
and  join  the  ranks  of  the  laborers."  Under  the  circum 
stances,  the  law  limiting  land  holdings  was  not  en 
forced,  and  at  the  present  time  "of  the  best  land  of 
Porto  Rico,  537,193  acres  are  owned  and  229,203  acres 
are  leased  by  477  individuals,  partnerships,  or  corpora 
tions  from  the  United  States,  Spain,  France  and  other 

358 


countries."  The  total  wealth  of  the  island  is  in  the 
hands  of  fifteen  per  cent,  of  the  population.  Fourteen 
per  cent  of  the  wealth  is  in  the  hands  of  native  Porto 
Ricans.  Sixty-seven  per  cent  is  owned  by  Americans. 
Four-fifths  of  the  people  of  Porto  Rico  live  in  the  rural 
districts.  They  build  their  little  shacks  on  land  that 
does  not  belong  to  them;  they  work  when  work  is  to 
be  had  on  the  nearest  plantation;  the  men  dress  in  a 
pair  of  trousers,  a  shirt  and  a  straw  hat.  "Throughout 
the  island  thousands  of  children  of  the  ages  from  one 
to  seven  years  go  naked,  in  the  towns  as  well  as  in  the 
rural  districts." 

When  the  laborer  is  at  work  he  and  his  family  share 
the  following  diet: 

Breakfast — Black  coffee,  without  milk,  and 
quite  often  without  sugar. 

Lunch — Rice  and  beans,  or  rice  and  codfish, 
or  codfish  and  plantins. 

Supper — The  same  as  lunch. 

This  diet  holds  good  while  the  laborer  has  steady  worK, 
but,  during  a  large  part  of  the  year — five  or  six  months 
— there  is  no  work.  "How  he  pulls  through  the  slow 
season  is  a  mystery  to  many  who  are  interested  in  the 
welfare  of  the  laborer." 

The  Porto  Rican  laborer  is  a  sick  man.     "Hookworm 
disease,  anemia,  etc.,  are  very  widespread." 

The  low  energy  value  of  the  diet,  together  with  the 
prevalence  of  sickness,  has  so  undermined  the  endur 
ance  of  the  Porto  Rican  laborer  that  a  number  of  ex 
periments  in  .scientific  diet,  carried  on  by  the  employers 
themselves,  resulted  in  increasing  the  working  capacity 
of  the  men  from  50  to  100  per  cent.  Mr.  Marcus  finds 
that,  with  an  increase  in  wages  which  would  enable  the 
laborer  to  purchase  some  meat  and  dairy  products,  the 
charge  of  laziness  and  inefficiency,  which  is  frequently 
lodged  against  the  workers,  might  well  be  withdrawn. 
The  investigation  upon  which  Mr.  Marcus  bases  his 
report  was  made  during  the  year  1919.  At  that  time 
machinists  in  the  sugar  mills  received  about  one  dollar 

359 


per  day.  Laborers  in  the  busy  season  were  paid  ninety 
cents  per  day;  in  the  ,slow  season  seventy  cents.  The 
working  clay  is  from  ten  to  twelve  hours.  On  the  to 
bacco  plantations  men's  wages  during  the  busy  season 
are  from  sixty  to  eighty  cents  a  day  and,  during  the 
dull  season,  from  forty  to  sixty  cents  a  day.  Women 
receive  from  thirty-five  to  forty-five  cents  a  day  in  the 
busy  season  and  from  twenty-five  to  thirty-five  a  day 
in  the  dull  season.  On  the  coffee  plantations  wages  are 
lower.  Men  receive  from  fifty  to  sixty  cents  per  day 
in  the  busy  season  and  from  thirty-five  to  forty-five 
cents  per  day  in  the  dull  season. 

Mr.  Marcus  reports  that  the  needle  industry  is  mak 
ing  considerable  headway  in  Porto  Rico.  Men's  and 
children's  suits  are  manufactured  by  women  operators 
who  earn  from  three  dollars  and  fifty  cents  to  five  dol 
lars  per  week.  Embroidery  manufacturing,  lace-mak 
ing  and  drawing  work  pay  from  one  dollar  and  twenty- 
five  cents  to  four  dollars  per  week.  The  work  is  done 
exclusively  by  women. 

Detailed  descriptions  are  given  of  living  and  working 
conditions  in  these  and  other  industries.  Enough  has 
been  said  here  to  indicate  very  clearly  that  the  Ameri 
can  people,  having  assumed  the  responsibility  for  di 
recting  the  lives  of  1,118,012  Porto  Ricans,  are  far 
behind  the  standard  of  ''health  and  decency"  which 
civilization  prescribes  as  the  minimum  below  which 
human  beings  cannot  be  expected  to  live  and  to  work. 

Here  are  twTo  examples  of  the  work  of  modern  em 
pires.  Great  Britain  fought  two  wars  in  order  to  force 
the  drug  habit  on  China.  The  United  States  took  Porto 
Rico  away  from  its  "Spanish  oppressors"  and  then 
turned  the  island  over  to  absentee  landlords,  whose 
sole  interest  in  the  island  was  to  make  out  of  it  all  the 
money  they  could.  This  is  imperialism  at  its  worst — 
hard,  grasping,  western  imperialism.  With  it  I  should 
like  to  contrast  an  instance  of  imperialism  among  the 
"heathen"  of  the  Orient. 

Japan  took  the  Island  of  Formosa  from  China  about 

360 


1897.  Formosa  is  a  very  fertile  island  lying  off  the 
coast  of  China  in  the  Pacific  Ocean.  Its  population  is 
almost  exclusively  Chinese,  and  it  has  been  a  part  of 
the  Chinese  Empire  for  over  four  thousand  years.  The 
inhabitants  nearly  all  smoked  opium  which  had  been 
forced  upon  them  by  England  as  a  result  of  the  two 
"Opium  wars."  When  Japan  compelled  China  to  relin 
quish  her  right  to  the  Island  of  Formosa  (she  had  al 
ready  occupied  the  island  during  the  war)  she  sent 
eight  hundred  surveyors  to  the  island  and  surveyed 
all  of  the  land  in  Formosa.  When  the  survey  was  com 
pleted  she  made  maps  showing  who  occupied  each 
tract  and  describing  the  title  by  which  it  was  held. 

The  Japanese  found  that  the  land  in  Formosa  was 
owned  in  great  tracts  by  Chinese  mandarins,  most  of 
whom  lived  over  in  the  cities  on  the  main  coast  of 
China,  many  of  them  in  Amboy.  The  holdings  of  these 
absentee  landlords  were  from  200,000  to  500,000  acres. 
On  the  island  itself  practically  all  of  the  4,000,000  in 
habitants  were  landless  and  were  paying  rent  to  own 
ers  who  lived  abroad.  No  provision  whatever  was 
made  for  the  education  of  the  Formosan  children. 

Japan  at  the  same  time  registered  every  opium 
smoker  in  Formosa  and  ascertained  the  amount  of 
opium  he  smoked  each  day.  She  also  destroyed  every 
poppy  field  in  Formosa  and  built  an  opium  factory  and 
purchased  the  raw  opium  from  the  Indian  (English) 
Government  to  supply  the  registered  opium  smokers 
each  day  with  the  amount  they  smoked.  She  then 
passed  a  statute  making  the  raising  of  poppies  a  crime 
and  making  it  a  criminal  offense  for  any  person  except 
a  registered  opium  smoker  to  have  any  opium  in  his 
possession.  Consequently,  when  all  the  registered 
opium  smokers  died  off,  opium  smoking  was  wiped  out 
all  over  the  island. 

Having  surveyed  the  land  and  ascertained  just  who 
owned  it,  Japan  passed  a  law  taking  the  title  of  the 
Island  of  Formosa  from  the  landlords  and  conveying  it 
to  the  Empire  of  Japan.  As  compensation  to  the  land- 

361 


lords,  Japan  issued  4,000,000  yen  of  Formosan  trust 
bonds  and  divided  these  bonds  arbitrarily  among  those 
who  had  owned  the  island.  Then  she  gave  to  each 
farmer  who  tilled  the  soil  in  Formosa  the  land  he  occu 
pied,  and  used,  as  well  as  the  improvements  which  t  e 
already  owned,  and  accompanied  this  gift  with  a  pro 
vision  that  the  farmer  might  dispose  of  his  improve 
ments  to  any  other  person  who  actually  used  and  occu 
pied  the  same,  or  that  his  improvements  might  descend 
to  his  children.  In  the  case  of  the  land,  however,  he 
was  denied  the  right  to  alienate  any  portion  of  it.  The 
Japanese  also  established  schools  all  over  Formosa  fcr 
the  compulsory  education  of  the  people. 

I  cite  these  facts  because  they  present  a  picture  of 
imperialism  at  its  best — as  it  was  practiced  by  Japan — 
in  contrast  with  imperialism  at  its  worst,  as  it  is  prac 
ticed  by  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States.  At  bot 
tom,  however,  imperialism  is  imperialism  and  is  the 
same  in  principle,  wherever  it  is  found. 

After  all,  why  talk  nonsense?  Why  lie  to  others? 
Why  seek  to  deceive  ourselves?  An  imperial  policy  has 
as  its  object  the  enrichment  of  the  imperial  class.  Tha 
plain  man — the  farmer,  the  miner,  -the  factory  worke  r 
—is  not  the  gainer  through  imperialism.  Rather  the 
monopolist,  the  land  owner,  the  manufacturer,  the 
trader,  the  banker — who  have  stolen  what  there  is  to 
steal  at  home,  devote  their  energies  to  the  pursuit  of 
empire  because  the  pursuit  of  empire  gives  them  an 
opportunity  to  exploit  and  rob  abroad. 

We  annexed  Hawaii,  not  to  help  the  Hawaiians,  but 
because  it  was  a  good  business  proposition  for  the 
sugar  interests.  We  took  the  Philippine  Islands  be 
cause  the  far-seeing  among  the  plutocrats  believed  that 
there  was  a  future  economic  advantage  in  the  East. 
For  the  same  reason  we  are  in  Haiti,  Costa  Rica  and 
Panama.  Each  step  along  the  imperial  path  is  taken 
for  the  economic  advantage  of  the  business  men  of  the 
United  States  and  at  the  expense  of  the  liberty  and 
the  lives  of  the  natives  over  whom  we  secure  dominion. 

362 


XXVII.    THE  U.  S.  AND  THE  COURSE  OF  EMPIRE 

The  United  States  has  entered  upon  the  course  of 
empire.  There  is  no  limit  to  imperial  policy ;  if  we  can 
justify  the  taking  of  the  Philippines  and  governing 
them  against  their  will — if  we  can  justify  conquering 
countries  where  our  Constitution  cannot  go — our 
armies  will  soon  be  marching  across  Mexico,  down  the 
Isthmus  to  South  America,  leaving  death  and  desola 
tion  in  their  track,  rearing  upon  the  ruins  of  those  free 
governments  a  tyrannical,  despotic  power. 

Let  a  free  people  once  set  out  on  an  imperial  course 
and  the  institutions  that  are  dear  to  every  lover  of 
liberty  disappear  like  April  snow. 

Imperial  power  cannot  possibly  be  maintained  with 
out  an  immense  navy  and  a  standing  army.  Do  not 
the  very  existence  of  such  an  army  and  such  a  navy 
constitute  a  denial  of  all  that  the  old  America  stood 
for? 

Armies  and  navies  are  fighting  machines.  If  they 
ara  to  be  successfully  operated  there  must  be  one  man 
to  whom  is  given  supreme  control.  If  there  is  to  be  an 
empire,  there  must  be  a  dictator,  so  that  he  can  move 
with  rapidity;  so  that  decisions  can  be  made  in  a  day 
and  arm  Jos  marched  and  ships  moved  where  danger  is 
seen.  Is  despotism  what  the  people  of  America  desire? 
If  so,  they  will  have  it — indeed,  they  now  have  it  under 
the  imperial  realities  that  are  cloaked  under  the  guise 
of  republican  names  and  republican  traditions.  Is  it 
freedom  that  the  American  people  seek?  Then  they 
must  abandon  the  course  of  empire. 

It  is  impossible  for  a  republican  form  of  government 
to  function  as  an  empire.  Republican  institutions  in 
variably  are  corrupted  when  imperialism  is  established. 
Creasy,  in  his  Fifteen  Decisive  Battles  of  the  World, 
puts  the  matter  tersely  in  these  words : 

"There  has  never  been  a  republic  yet  in  history  that 
acquired  dominion  over  another  nation  that  did  not  rule 
it  selfishly  and  oppressively.  There  is  no  single  excep- 

363 


tion  to  this  rule,  either  in  ancient  or  modern  times. 
Carthage,  Rome,  Venice,  Genoa,  Florence,  Pisa,  Holland 
and  Republican  France,  all  tyrannized  over  every  prov 
ince  and  subject-state  where  they  gained  authority.'' 

Imperialism  is  tyranny  and  in  the  process  of  destroy 
ing  liberty  abroad  you  crush  it  effectively  at  home. 
Senator  Hoar  saw  the  peril.  When  the  question  oi 
imperialism  was  up  for  discussion  in  the  Senate  he 
said  (January  9,  1899) : 

"We  have  now  to  meet  a  greater  danger  than  we  have 
encountered  since  the  Pilgrims  landed  at  Plymouth — 
the  danger  that  we  are  to  be  transformed  from  a  repub 
lic,  founded  on  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  guided 
by  the  counsels  of  Washington,  into  a  vulgar,  common 
place  empire,  founded  upon  physical  force." 

Read  history !    The  record  is  unmistakable. 

Among  the  plutocracies  and  the  monarchies  of  the 
past,  whenever  property  and  power  have  been  gathered 
into  the  hands  of  the  few  and  discontent  has  appeared 
among  the  masses,  it  has  been  the  policy  to  acquire 
foreign  possessions,  to  enlarge  the  army  and  the  navy, 
so  as  to  keep  discontent  occupied  and  thus  distract  its 
attention.  A  foreign  war  has  cut  many  a  domestic 
tangle.  The  recent  record  of  the  United  States  in  its 
acquisition  of  foreign  territory,  coming  as  it  does  with 
an  increase  of  the  army  and  the  navy,  tells  the  sinister 
story  of  the  decision  which  the  ruling  classes  of  Am 
erica  have  made  to  pursue  an  imperial  policy. 

The  growth  of  the  army  and  navy  of  the  United 
States  during  the  past  twenty  years  has  been  phenom 
enal.  When  I  entered  the  Senate,  the  authorized 
strength  of  the  army  was  28,417  men  and  the  annual 
army  appropriation  was  $44,582,838.  Today  the  au 
thorized  strength  of  the  army  is  175,000  and  the  appro 
priation  requested  by  the  War  Department  is  $935,- 
000,000.  The  navy,  which  received  an  appropriation 
of  $22,006,206  in  1890,  is  asking  this  year  for  $695,- 
000,000.  A  generation  has  seen  the  army  and  navy 
of  the  United  States  increased  from  defensive  organiza- 

364 


tions  to  the  powerful,  imperial  fighting  machines — the 
dogs  of  war,  larger,  stronger  and  better  fed  than  those 
belonging  to  any  other  nation  in  the  world. 

Rome  was  organized  as  a  republic.  For  the  first  six 
hundred  years  of  her  history  she  had  the  best  govern 
ment  then  existing  on  the  globe.  To  be  a  Roman  citi 
zen  was  a  greater  honor  than  to  be  a  king  in  another 
country. 

Rome  consolidated  her  powrer  until  she  ruled  all  Italy. 
Then  she  began  to  spread  out  along  the  northern  coast 
of  the  Mediterranean  to  reach  into  Assia  Minor  and 
Africa.  But,  when  the  policy  of  acquiring  and  ruling 
peoples  who  could  have  no  part  in  her  republican  form 
of  government  began,  Rome  ceased  to  exist  as  a  Repub 
lic  and  became  an  Empire.  From  that  point  the  his 
torian  dates  the  ruin  of  her  government,  and  the  misery 
of  her  population.  When  Rome  had  acquired  Egypt 
and  Asia  Minor  with  their  populations  of  low  consum 
ing  power  and  great  tenacity  of  life,  the  Roman  citizen 
found  that  he  could  not  compete  against  them  in  the 
growing  of  crops  or  in  other  industrial  enterprises. 

The  Roman  of  those  days  was  like  the  Anglo-Saxon 
of  today — a  man  of  great  vitality,  requiring  excellent 
nurture,  the  best  food  and  plenty  of  it.  When  he  came 
into  competition  with  the  Asiatic  races,  people  of  low 
vitality  and  with  a  great  tenacity  of  life — human  ma 
chines  who  could  subsist  upon  the  least  food  and  per 
form  the  most  work — the  Roman  farmer  was  destroyed, 
the  foundation  of  power  was  shattered  and  the  Roman 
Empire  passed  away. 

When  the  Roman  Republic  was  established  most  of 
its  people  were  farmers.  Their  farms  did  not  average 
more  than  twelve  acres  in  area,  indicating  a  dense 
rural  population.  No  foreign  foe  could  march  through 
that  stockade  of  individual  farm  owners  to  the  walls 
of  Rome.  They  were  successful  farmers  and  prosper 
ous,  and  they  made  mighty  soldiers.  Cincinnatus  left 
the  plow  to  lead  his  victorious  legions.  This  was  the 
situation  during  the  early  days  of  the  Roman  state. 

365 


During  the  first  century  of  the  Christian  era  centrali 
zation  of  wealth  power  revolutionized  this  simple  life 
of  the  small  farm.  The  lands  were  absorbed  by  the 
wealthy;  the  mines  of  silver  and  gold  in  Spain  and 
Greece  had  been  worked  out;  the  old  republic  disap 
peared  and  in  its  place  was  erected  the  structure  of 
an  empire. 

James  Bryce  says  of  this  period  of  Roman  history: 

"The  ostentation  of  humility  which  the  subtle  policy 
of  Augustus  had  conceived,  and  the  jealous  hypocrisy 
of  Tiberius  maintained,  was  gradually  dropped  by 
their  successors  until  despotism  became  at  last  recog 
nized  in  principle  as  the  government  of  the  Roman  Em 
pire.  With  an  aristocracy  decayed,  a  populace  de 
graded,  an  army  no  longer  recruited  from  Italy,  the 
semblance  of  liberty  that  yet  survived  might  be  swept 
away  with  impunity.  Republican  forms  had  never 
been  known  in  the  provinces  at  all  and  the  aspect  which 
the  imperial  administration  had  originally  assumed 
there  soon  reacted  on  its  position  in  the  capital.  .  .  . 
This  increased  concentration  of  power  was  mainly  re 
quired  by  the  necessities  of  frontier  defense,  for  within 
there  was  more  decay  than  disaffection." 

Great  Britain  rules  over  the  mightiest  of  modern 
empires,  but  the  British  people  have  not  been  enriched 
by  her  conquests.  Study  the  facts  with  regard  to  her 
laboring  population.  Compare  the  English  factory 
worker  of  today  with  the  English  yeoman  of  four  or 
five  hundred  years  ago — compare  them  in  health,  in 
vigor,  in  quickness  of  eye  and  hand,  in  love  of  life — 
in  anything  you  will,  and  the  result  will  be  to  the  dis 
advantage  of  the  present-day  Britisher. 

Where  are  the  people  of  Europe  best  off  at  the 
present  time  ?  Is  it  in  Great  Britain — mistress  of  the 
sea  and  ruler  of  territory  scattered  over  six  continents  ? 
Not  at  all!  It  is  in  little  Switzerland,  Holland,  Nor 
way.  Where  is  there  the  best  distribution  of  wealth, 
the  best  opportunity  for  the  individual  man?  Where 
is  there  the  least  poverty,  misery  and  distress?  It  is 

366 


in  Switzerland  and  Norway.  It  is  not  in  England. 
Her  conquests  have  bestowed  no  blessings  upon  her 
people.  Two-thirds  of  them  own  nothing,  while  about 
a  quarter  of  a  million  own  all  the  property  of  the 
British  Islands. 

What  blessings  has  England  conferred  upon  her  col 
onies  that  would  justify  the  adoption  of  her  policy  by 
the  United  States?  Her  course  in  Ireland  has  been 
one  of  the  blackest  pages  in  the  history  of  the  world — 
a  record  of  starvation  and  plunder. 

If  England  will  govern  Ireland  as  she  has  done,  what 
right  has  she  to  claim  that  she  can  govern  any  country? 
What  is  there  in  England's  example  that  can  justify  us 
in  undertaking  the  same  work? 

England  began  with  Ireland.  She  followed  with  In 
dia.  How  has  that  country  fared?  In  India,  the  Eng 
lish  have  made  practically  no  converts  to  Christianity. 
Neither  have  the  natives  learned  the  English  language. 
A  great  army,  paid  for  by  the  native  governments 
themselves,  has  been  maintained  to  hold  the  Indian 
peoples  in  subjection  and  to  prevent  them  from  secur 
ing  modern  arms  and  modern  implements  of  destruc 
tion.  Indian  raw  materials  cannot  be  manufactured 
at  home  because  of  the  taxes  imposed  by  the  British 
authorities.  Instead,  they  are  shipped,  in  English 
ships,  to  Great  Britain ;  manufactured  and  underrated 
by  British  manufacturers  and  merchants,  and  then 
transported  back  to  India  and  sold  to  the  Indian  people. 
As  trader,  manufacturer,  merchant,  insurance  agent 
and  banker,  Great  Britain  has  profited,  and  India  has 
paid. 

What  blessing  has  England  conferred  upon  India? 
No  blessings!  On  the  contrary,  she  has  taken  away 
the  food  supply  of  the  native  population  and  left  mil 
lions  to  die  of  starvation. 

At  the  time  of  annexing  the  Philippines  President 
McKinley  said  that  moral  reasons  compelled  us  to  stay 
in  the  Philippines,  and  that  we,  under  God's  direction, 
owed  a  duty  to  mankind,  and  more  of  similar  cant. 

367 


Here  is  what  John  Morley,  the  English  statesman  and 
writer  and  biographer  of  Gladstone  says  with  regard 
to  England's  policy  in  this  same  connection: 

"First,  you  push  on  into  territories  where  you  have 
no  business  to  be  and  where  you  promised  not  to  go; 
secondly,  your  intrusion  provokes  resentment  and,  in 
these  wild  countries,  resentment  means  resistance; 
thirdly,  you  instantly  cry  out  that  the  people  are  rebel 
lious  and  that  their  act  is  rebellion  (this  in  spite  of 
your  own  assurance  that  you  have  no  intention  of 
setting  up  a  permanent  sovereignty  over  them)  ; 
fourthly,  you  send  a  force  to  stamp  out  the  rebellion; 
and,  fifthly,  having  spread  bloodshed,  confusion  and 
anarchy,  you  declare,  with  eyes  uplifted  to  the  heavens, 
that  moral  reasons  force  you  to  stay,  for  if  you  were 
to  leave,  this  territory  would  be  left  in  a  condition 
which  no  civilized  power  could  contemplate  with  equan 
imity  or  composure.  These  are  the  five  stages  in  the 
Forward  Rake's  progress." 

There  is  not  a  word  in  that  passage  that  does  not 
accord  with  the  excuses  given  by  those  American  im 
perialists  who  are  in  favor  of  conquering  and  ruling 
unwilling  peoples. 

Does  the  United  States  wish  to  follow  the  British 
example?  From  it  no  money  will  come  into  the  Treas 
ury  for  he  benefit  of  the  people  of  the  United  States. 
The  laborers  of  this  land,  from  whom  we  raise  our 
taxes  in  the  same  way  that  England  raises  hers — by  a 
per  capita  levy  on  consumption — are  invited  to  contri 
bute  this  taxation  to  support  an  army  of  occupation 
and  subsidize  ships  to  carry  the  trade,  in  order  that 
the  people  in  the  outlying  territory  may  be  exploited 
by  the  trusts  of  the  United  States. 

There  is  another  reason  behind  the  imperialist  pro 
gram  that  is  being  followed  by  the  United  States.  It 
is  well  when  people  become  restless  and  dissatisfied 
with  the  conditions  which  exist;  when  the  workers  of 
a  land  learn  to  believe  that  they  are  not  receiving  their 
just  share  of  the  products  of  their  toil,  to  give  them 

368 


amusement — to  distract  their  attention  by  distant 
problems — to  supply  them  with  bread  and  circuses,  as 
in  Rome,  or  to  do  as  England  has  done — begin  the  kill 
ing  of  men  in  some  far-off  land  and  then  appeal  to  the 
patriotism  of  the  folks  at  home.  By  such  means  are 
the  minds  of  the  people  diverted  from  the  pressing 
economic  and  social  problems,  the  right  solution  of 
which  is  essential  to  the  happiness  of  the  toilers  of  the 
nation. 

There  is  no  justification  in  history  for  the  imperial 
course  upon  which  we  have  entered.  Rather,  every 
page  in  history  is  a  warning  to  us — that  we  desist  be 
fore  it  is  too  late.  And  why  should  we  not  desist? 
What  reason  can  be  given  for  our  imperial  policy  save 
the  desire  of  the  ruling  class  to  plunder  and  invest? 

The  area  of  this  country  is  great  enough,  if  we  would 
maintain  free  institutions  under  a  republican  form 
of  government,  for  in  a  republic,  founded  upon  the 
principles  of  equality  and  universal  suffrage,  it  is  es 
sential  that  the  individual  voter  shall  have  a  knowl 
edge  of,  and  be  familiar  with,  the  methods  of  govern 
ment  ;  and  if  the  country  is  so  great  and  the  problem^ 
of  government  are  so  complicated  that  it  is  impossible 
for  the  individual  voter  to  acquire  this  familiar  knowl 
edge,  how  is  it  possible  for  him  to  vote  intelligently? 
How  is  it  possible  for  him  to  know  that  by  his  vote  he 
is  maintaining  free  institutions?  In  the  past,  repub 
lics  have  been  of  quite  limited  area — a  single  city  per 
haps — with  a  comparatively  small  population.  The 
founders  of  this  government,  recognizing  the  difficulty 
of  maintaining  as  a  unit  a  republic  of  extensive  pro 
portions,  inaugurated  the  Federal  system,  a  union  of 
sovereign  states,  hoping  thereby  to  extend  self-govern 
ment  over  vast  areas  and  to  maintain  at  the  same  time 
the  purity  of  republican  principles  by  making  each 
sovereign  state  a  free  republic. 

For  the  purpose  of  unifying  a  vast  area  within  the 
bounds  of  a  republic  it  was  enacted  that  the  central  gov 
ernment,  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  should 

369 


be  a  government  of  limited  powers,  a  government  pos 
sessing  only  such  powers  as  were  conferred  upon  it  by 
the  Constitution.  All  other  sovereign  rights — all  other 
powers  common  to  a  sovereign — were  retained  by  the 
States  themselves,  or  by  the  people  themselves  as  in 
habitants  of  the  States.  If  we  follow  our  present 
policy  of  acquiring  tropical  countries,  where  republics 
cannot  live,  and  where  free,  self-governing  people  have 
never  lived  since  the  world  had  a  history,  we  overturn 
the  theory  upon  which  this  government  was  established. 

The  whole  theory  of  our  government  precludes  cer- 
tralization  of  power;  the  whole  theory  of  our  goverr- 
ment  sustains  the  idea  that  the  United  States  as  a  gov 
ernment  shall  only  do  those  things  which  cannot  be 
done  with  equal  effectiveness  by  the  states  or  by  the 
individual  citizens. 

But  our  Federal  system  has  not  accomplished  the 
purpose  for  which  it  was  created;  it  has  not  fulfilled 
the  expectation  of  its  authors. 

Before  we  acquire  more  territory;  before  we  start 
on  a  policy  of  imperialism  and  of  conquest,  it  is  our 
duty  to  inquire  whether  our  area  and  population  are 
not  already  too  great.  Centralization  went  on  rapidly 
after  the  War  of  the  Rebellion.  It  was  hastened  by 
the  Spanish  War.  It  received  an  immense  impetus 
during  the  World  War.  As  a  result,  our  people  are 
looking  to  the  Government  of  the  United  States  as  the 
source  of  all  power  and  the  channel  through  which  all 
relief  must  come.  The  American  people  have  ceased 
to  rely  on  the  states.  They  are  forgetting  how  to  rely 
upon  themselves. 

This  concentration  of  power  in  the  hands  of  the 
Federal  Government  has  been  followed  by  encroach 
ments  by  the  Federal  courts  upon  the  sovereignty  of 
the  states  and  upon  the  legislative  and  executive 
branches  of  the  government  itself,  until  a  point  has 
been  reached  in  our  public  life  where  the  courts  are 
almost  supreme. 

Within  the  past  fifty  years  the  wealth  of  the  United 

370 


States,  which  was  once  fairly  distributed,  has  been  ac 
cumulated  in  the  hands  of  a  few,  so  that  five  per  cent 
of  the  people  own  three-quarters  of  the  nation's  wealth, 
while  two-thirds  of  the  citizens  —  the  workers  —  are 
practically  without  property.  Recent  events  point  un 
mistakably  to  the  fact  that  the  few  men  who  own  nearly 
all  the  wealth  have  gained  control  of  the  machinery  of 
public  life.  They  have  usurped  the  functions  of  gov 
ernment  and  established  a  plutocracy. 

Those  who  favor  an  imperial  policy  for  the  United 
States,  who  favor  a  departure  from  those  customs  and 
practices  that  have  created  the  proudest  pages  in  our 
history,  say  it  is  manifest  destiny.  Throughout  all 
recorded  time  manifest  destiny  has  been  the  murderer 
of  men. 

Manifest  destiny  has  caused  the  strong  to  rob  the 
weak  and  has  reduced  the  wreak  to  slavery.  Manifest 
destiny  built  the  feudal  castle  and  supplied  the  feudal 
lord  writh  his  serfs.  Manifest  destiny  compelled  re 
publics  to  go  forth  and  conquer  weaker  races  and  to 
subject  the  conquered  people  to  slavery;  to  impose  tax 
ation  against  their  will,  and  to  inflict  upon  them  forms 
of  government  which  they  considered  odious.  Mani 
fest  destiny  is  the  cry  of  the  strong  in  justification  of 
their  plunder  of  the  weak.  This  cry  sent  forth  the 
nations  of  Europe  to  divide  among  them  the  weaker 
nations  of  Africa  and  Asia. 

If  we  pursue  the  course  to  which  "manifest  des 
tiny"  is  alluring  us;  if  we  annex  weaker  nations  to 
which  we  cannot  apply  our  system  of  government; 
if  we  acquire  territory  in  the  Tropics  where  men  can 
not  live  who  are  capable  of  self-government,  then  re 
publican  forms  cannot  exist  in  those  distant  posses 
sions.  The  vigorous  blood,  the  best  blood,  the  young 
men  of  our  land,  will  be  drawn  away  to  mix  with  dis 
tant  races  and  to  hold  them  in  subjection.  Gradually 
the  reflex  of  the  conquest  and  of  this  tyrannical  gov 
ernment  will  work  its  effect  upon  our  own  people,  and 
free  institutions  will  disappear  from  this  land,  as  well 

371 


as  from  the  land  we  conquer  and  undertake  to  hold 
in  subjection. 

Whenever  England  concludes  to  go  upon  an  expedi 
tion  and  plunder  some  of  the  weaker  nations  of  the 
world,  she  makes  her  first  appeal  to  patriotism.  Then, 
step  by  step,  she  goes  on  until  she  has  committed  the 
wrong,  has  transgressed  the  rights  of  the  natives ;  has 
aroused  their  resistance,  and  then  she  declares  that  the 
flag  has  been  fired  on,  and  that  no  Englishman  musi: 
question  the  right  or  wrong  of  what  is  being  done  until 
the  enemy  is  defeated  and  the  country  annexed. 

Contemplate  the  course  of  every  republic  in  the  past 
watch  its  surrender  to  the  lust  of  power  and  the  greec 
for  wealth ;  then  turn  to  our  own  shores,  examine  our 
present  conduct  and  see  our  flag  go  down  in  misery 
and  in  shame.  The  glory  of  this  republic  has  been 
that  we  have  offered  an  asylum  to  the  oppressed  and  a 
hope  to  mankind  which  has  been  followed  wherever 
freedom  has  flowered  throughout  the  world.  Shall  we 
stain  that  record?  Shall  we  abandon  history?  Shall 
we  become  one  of  the  robber  nations  of  the  world? 

The  United  States  is  on  the  wrong  course — the  course 
that  leads  to  national  disgrace  and  finally  to  national 
destruction.  The  wealth  lords  who  desire  imperialism 
are  not  the  American  people.  The  jingoes  and  ex 
ploiters  who  are  out  for  conquest  and  for  annexation 
are  not  the  American  people.  They  are  merely  the  rep 
resentatives  of  a  ruling  class  that  would  use  the  Ameri 
can  people  to  fill  their  own  money  bags. 

We  have  a  task — clear  and  well  defined. 

Our  duty  is  to  educate  and  elevate  the  population  we 
already  have,  and  thus  perpetuate  our  institutions.  In 
the  past  every  republic  has  sown  the  seeds  of  its  final 
destruction  by  gratifying  the  desire  for  conquest  and 
for  glory.  Let  us  profit  by  their  example  and  pursue 
a  course  that  will  make  the  masses  happy  and  pros 
perous  rather  than  dazzle  and  allay  the  mutterings  of 
misery  and  discontent  by  the  march  of  armies  and  the 
glory  of  conquest. 

372 


XXVIII.     THE  PROFITEERS 

The  test  of  a  man  or  of  a  social  system  is  the  way  he 
acts  in  a  crisis.  The  great  war  was  the  crisis  that 
tested  American  capitalism  and  that  showed  it  up  for 
what  it  was — a  brutal  game  of  profit-making  at  the 
expense  of  the  people  who  work  and  pay. 

When  the  war  broke  out  in  Europe,  I  knew  that  the 
American  business  men  would  take  advantage  of  the 
emergency  in  which  Europe  found  herself  to  charge 
the  highest  possible  price  for  the  worst  possible  prod 
uct  and  when,  three  years  later,  the  United  States  de 
cided  to  enter  the  war  I  was  equally  convinced  that 
the  American  business  men  would  rob  their  own  coun 
try  of  every  farthing  on  which  they  could  lay  their 
hands. 

Not  for  a  moment  was  I  deceived  by  the  glib  talk  of 
"patriotism"  that  sounded  from  every  Chamber  of 
Commerce  and  every  business  office  and  banking  in 
stitution.  I  had  dealt  with  the  armor-plate  contracts 
in  the  United  States  Senate  twenty  years  before ;  I  had 
invetigated  the  sickening  details  of  the  beef  contracts 
made  by  the  packers  with  the  government  during  the 
Spanish  war.  Besides  these  details  and  beyond  them,  I 
knew  the  whole  business  system  for  what  it  was — a  de 
vice  for  enabling  the  strong  to  rob  the  weak;  for  per 
mitting  the  capitalist  to  coin  every  private  or  public 
need  into  profits. 

A  reference  to  the  situation  which  was  unearthed  in 
the  Senate  away  back  in  1897  will  give  the  justification 
of  the  conclusions  I  have  reached  with  regard  to  the 
capitalist  system,  as  such. 

In  the  closing  days  of  the  54th  Congress  a  question 
arose  regarding  the  cost  of  armor-plate.  After  an  ex 
haustive  discussion,  in  which  great  quantities  of  evi 
dence  were  submitted,  the  question  was  put  to  a  vote 
of  the  Senate  in  this  form : — Shall  the  Senate  vote  for 
armor-plate  at  $300  or  $400  per  ton?  Only  twelve 
Senators  favored  the  $400  limit.  They  were  Aldrich, 

373 


Allison,  Brice,  Cullom,  Gibson,  Gorman,  Hale,  Haw- 
ley,  McMillan,  Murphy,  Squire  and  Wetmore.  There 
were  36  votes  cast  on  the  other  side,  of  which  mine 
was  one. 

The  evidence  seemed  perfectly  clear.  We  had  sum 
moned  experts  and  ascertained  that  the  cost  of  labor 
and  materials  entering  into  a  ton  of  armor-plate  was 
about  $160.  This  figure  included  a  charge  for  "keep 
ing  plant  ready  for  use,"  a  charge  for  "shop  expenses," 
a  charge  for  "office  expenses  and  contingencies,"  and 
a  charge  for  "administration,  superintendence  and  en 
gineering,  beside  the  charges  for  "materials  in  ingots," 
"materials  consumed  in  manufacture"  and  for  "labor." 
Ten  per  cent  was  allowed  for  re-pipings  and  10  per  cent 
for  rejected  plates,  making  a  total  of  about  $200  per 
ton.  The  company  claimed  a  return  on  the  "invest 
ment,"  but  it  was  proved  that  profit  on  the  first  armor- 
plate  contract  secured  by  these  companies  had  been 
equal  to  the  entire  cost  of  the  plant.  An  allowance  of 
5  to  10  per  cent  was  made,  however,  for  repairs  and 
maintenance,  and  the  total  cost  of  a  ton  of  armor- 
plate  was  brought  up  to  $225. 

At  that  figure,  the  profit  to  the  companies  on  the 
8,000  tons  of  armor  would  be  about  $600,000  on  a  $300 
figure.  Under  the  circumstances  the  Senate  voted  36 
to  12  for  the  $300  figure. 

After  Congress  had  adjourned  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  endeavored  to  get  bids  at  $300.  None  was  forth 
coming.  Instead,  representatives  of  the  companies 
waited  on  him  and  advised  him  that  they  could  not 
make  the  plate  for  less  than  $425 — a  figure  which  al 
lowed  for  a  profit  of  about  $1,600,000  on  the  contract. 

An  amendment  was  therefore  made  to  the  deficiency 
appropriation  bill  (July  13,  1897,  p.  2,553)  allowing 
for  amor-plate  at  that  price. 

"Last  winter  we  appropriated  money  for  the  purpose 
of  buying  armor-plate  and  limited  the  price  to  $300  a 
ton.  The  evidence  taken  before  the  Committee  on 
Naval  Affairs  showed  conclusively  that  the  plate  could 

374 


be  made  for  $250  a  ton.  The  two  armor-plate  factories, 
being  in  collusion  and  having  been  in  collusion  as  to 
every  bid  they  have  had  heretofore,  as  was  shown  by 
the  evidence  before  the  Committee  on  Naval  Affairs, 
refused  to  make  the  plate  for  $300,  but  insisted  that 
they  should  have  $425. 

"Instead  of  bringing  in  a  proposition  to  build  a 
factory  and  make  the  plate  ourselves  and  thus  protect 
the  interests  of  the  government,  the  Committee  on 
Appropriations  propose  to  accede  to  the  demands  of 
these  men,  who  are  in  a  trust  to  plunder  the  Treasury, 
and  they  bring  in  an  amendment  to  pay  them  $425, 
thus  cowardly  surrendering  to  this  admitted  combina 
tion.  It  seems  to  me  too  disgraceful  to  be  tolerated." 

(It  was  shown  that  the  two  plants  could  be  dupli 
cated  at  one  or  one  and  a  half  millions  each.) 

These  facts  and  many  others  that  had  come  to  my 
attention  during  the  years  of  my  public  life  led  me  to 
look  behind  the  patriotic  professions  of  the  business 
leaders — their  talk  about  Belgium  and  the  Lusitania, 
and  "Humanity"  and  "Democracy" — to  see  what  were 
the  real  reasons  that  were  leading  the  United  States 
into  the  war.  I  did  not  have  to  look  far  before  discov 
ering  the  answer.  American  banks,  like  the  Morgans, 
and  American  manufacturers,  like  the  Bethlehem  Steel 
Company,  had  granted  large  extensions  of  credit  to  the 
Allies  and,  if  the  Allies  lost,  they  were  bankrupt.  Fur 
thermore,  they  saw  an  unequaled  opportunity  to 
strengthen  their  hold  in  the  United  States  and  to  run 
a  pipeline  into  the  public  treasury.  The  entrance  of 
the  United  States  into  the  war  would  validate  their 
European  speculations  at  the  same  time  that  it  gave 
them  tens  of  billions  in  American  war  contracts. 

By  the  time  these  facts  were  clear  in  my  mind,  the 
United  States  had  entered  the  war.  I  opposed  the  step 
with  all  of  the  energy  that  I  had,  and,  after  it  was 
taken,  I  said  very  frankly  what  I  thought  about  it  in 
the  following  newspaper  interview  that  appeared  in  the 
Sioux  Falls  "Argus  Leader"  of  October  6,  1917: 

375 


"There  is  no  excuse  for  this  war." 

"We  should  back  right  out  of  it." 

"We  never  should  have  gone  into  a  war  to 
help  the  Schwabs  make  $40,000,000  per  year." 

"This  man  McAdoo  said  here  that  we  are  in 
the  war  from  principle  to  protect  our  right  to 
trade  on  the  open  sea.  Not  an  American  was 
killed  except  on  ammunition  boats,  and  they 
had  no  right  to  be  there." 

"Sympathy  is  being  extended  to  Belgium. 
She  deserves  none.  For  fifty  years  Belgium 
robbed  the  Congo.  This  made  Belgium 
wealthy,  but  three-fourths  of  her  people  did 
not  share  in  this  wealth.  If  she  is  now  indem 
nified  it  will  go  to  the  men  who  robbed  the 
negroes  of  the  Congo." 

"One  hundred  years  ago  we  fought  out  the 
alien  and  sedition  law.  The  party  back  of  it 
failed  at  the  next  election.  The  same  struggle 
is  on  again." 

"People  desire  to  know  if  they  are  living  in 
the  United  States  or  in  Russia." 

Since  the  day  that  I  had  refused  to  take  sides  with 
Mr.  Wilson  in  his  1912  campaign  he  had  disliked  me. 
This  statement  gave  him  his  chance  and  within  ten 
days  of  the  date  on  which  it  appeared  I  was  indicted  by 
the  Federal  Grand  Jury  at  Sioux  Falls,  S.  D. 

The  indictment  is  a  curious  document.  One  day,  with 
the  many  others  that  were  issued  during  the  same 
period,  it  will  be  historic: 

"The  District  Court  of  the  United  States  of  America 
for  the  Southern  Division  of  the  District  of  South  Da 
kota  in  the  Eighth  Judicial  Circuit. 

"At  a  .stated  term  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United 
States  of  America  for  the  Southern  Division  of  the 
District  of  South  Dakota  begun  and  held  at  the  City 
of  Sioux  Falls,  within  and  for  the  district  and  circuit 
aforesaid,  on  the  third  Tuesday  of  October,  in  the  year 

376 


of  our  Lord  one  thousand  nine  hundred  and  seventeen : 
"The  Grand  jurors  of  the  United  States  of  America, 
good  and  lawful  men,  summoned  from  the  body  of  the 
district  aforesaid,  then  and  there  being  duly  empaneled, 
sworn  and  charged  by  the  court  aforesaid,  to  diligently 
inquire  and  true  presentment  make  for  said  district 
of  South  Dakota,  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority  of 
the  United  States  of  America,  upon  their  oaths,  do  pre 
sent: 

"That  Richard  Franklin  Pettigrew,  late  of  Minne- 
haha  County,  State  of  South  Dakota,  in  said  district 
heretofore,  to  wit:  on  or  about  the  sixth  day  of  Octo 
ber,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  nine  hundred 
and  seventeen,  at  and  in  the  County  of  Minnehaha, 
State  of  South  Dakota,  and  in  the  division  and  district 
aforesaid,  and  within  the  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  this 
court,  and  while  and  when  the  United  States  was  at 
war  with  the  Imperial  German  Government,  pursuant 
to  a  joint  resolution  of  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States,  approved  by  the  President  of  the  United  States 
on  April  6,  A.  D.  1917,  did  then  and  there  knowingly, 
feloniously  and  wilfully  make,  say  and  utter  certain 
false  statements,  with  intent  to  promote  the  success  of 
the  enemy  of  the  United  States,  that  is  to  say,  the  Im 
perial  German  Government,  to-wit:  that  he,  the  said 
Pettigrew,  did  then  and  there  wilfully  and  feloniously 
publicly  state  and  say  to  one  P.  F.  Leavins,  and  to  other 
persons  to  the  Grand  Jurors  unknown,  and  did  then 
and  there  direct  and  cause  to  be  published,  printed  and 
circulated  through  and  by  means  of  the  'Daily  Argus 
Leader,'  a  daily  newspaper,  published  in  the  City  of 
Sioux  Falls,  State  of  South  Dakota,  in  words  and  sub 
stance,  as  follows,  that  is  to  say: 

"  There  is  no  excuse  for  this  war/ 
'  'We  should  back  right  out  of  it.' 
"  'We  never  should  have  gone  into  a  war  to 
help  the  Schwabs  make  $40,000,000  per  year/ 
"  'This  man  McAdoo  said  here  that  we  are 

377 


in  the  war  from  principle  to  protect  our  right 
to  trade  on  the  open  sea.  Not  an  American 
was  killed  except  on  ammunition  boats,  and 
they  had  no  right  to  be  there.' 

"  Sympathy  is  being  extended  to  Belgium. 
She  deserves  none.  Fifty  years  ago  Belgium 
robbed  the  Congo.  This  made  Belgium 
wealthy,  but  three-fourths  of  her  people  did 
not  share  in  this  wealth.  If  she  is  now  indem 
nified  it  will  go  to  the  men  who  robbed  the 
negroes  of  the  Congo.' 

"  'One  hundred  years  ago  we  fought  out  the 
alien  and  sedition  law.  The  party  back  of  it 
failed  at  the  next  election.  The  same  struggle 
is  on  again.' 

"  'People  desire  to  know  if  they  are  living 
in  the  United  States  or  in  Russia.' 

against  the  peace  and  dignity  of  the  United  States  of 
America  and  contrary  to  the  form,  force  and  effect  of 
the  statute  of  the  United  States  in  such  case  made  and 
provided. 

"Count  Two. 

"And  the  Grand  Jurors  aforesaid,  upon  their  oaths 
aforesaid,  do  further  present  and  say : 

"That  Richard  Franklin  Pettigrew,  late  of  Minne- 
haha  County,  State  of  South  Dakota,  in  the  said  dis 
trict  heretofore,  to-wit:  On  the  sixth  day  of  October, 
in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  nine  hundred  and 
seventeen,  with  force  and  arms,  at  and  in  the  County 
of  Minnehaha,  State  of  South  Dakota,  and  in  the  divi 
sion  and  district  aforesaid,  and  within  the  exclusive 
jurisdiction  of  this  court,  and  while  and  when  the 
United  States  was  at  war  with  the  Imperial  German 
Government,  pursuant  to  a  joint  resolution  of  the  Con 
gress  of  the  United  States,  approved  by  the  President 
of  the  United  States  on  April  6,  A.  D.  1917,  did  then 
and  there,  knowingly,  feloniously  and  wilfully  obstruct 

378 


the  recruiting  and  enlistment  service  of  the  United 
States,  to  the  injury  of  the  United  States,  in  that  he, 
the  said  Richard  Franklin  Pettigrew,  did  then  and  there 
feloniously  publicly  state,  say  and  utter  to  one  P.  F. 
Leavins,  and  to  other  persons  to  the  Grand  Jurors  un 
known,  and  did  then  and  there  direct  and  cause  to  be 
published,  printed  and  circulated  through  and  by  means 
of  the  'Daily  Argus  Leader,'  a  daily  newspaper,  pub 
lished  and  circulated  in  the  City  of  Sioux  Falls,  State 
of  South  Dakota,  in  words  and  substance,  as  follows, 
that  is  to  say: 

"  'There  is  no  excuse  for  this  war/ 

'  'We  should  back  right  out  of  it.' 

"  'We  never  should  have  gone  into  a  war  to 
help  the  Schwabs  make  $40,000,000  per  year/ 

"  'This  man  McAdop  said  here  that  we  are 
in  the  war  from  principle  to  protect  our  right 
to  trade  on  the  open  sea.  Not  an  American 
was  killed  except  on  ammunition  boats,  and 
they  had  no  right  to  be  there/ 

"  'Sympathy  is  being  extended  to  Belgium. 
She  deserves  none.  Fifty  years  ago  Belgium 
robbed  the  Congo.  This  made  Belgium 
wealthy,  but  three-fourths  of  her  people  did 
not  share  in  this  wealth.  If  she  is  now  indem 
nified  it  will  go  to  the  men  who  robbed  the 
negroes  of  the  Congo/ 

'  'One  hundred  years  ago  we  fought  out  the 
alien  and  sedition  law.  The  party  back  of  it 
failed  at  the  next  election;  the  same  struggle 
is  on  again/ 

"  'People  desire  to  know  if  they  are  living 
in  the  United  States  or  in  Russia/  ' 

against  the  peace  and  dignity  of  the  United  States  of 
America,  and  contrary  to  the  form,  force  and  effect 
of  the  statute  of  the  United  States  in  such  case  made 
and  provided. 

379 


"Count  Three. 

"And  the  Grand  Jurors  aforesaid,  upon  their  oaths 
aforesaid,  do  further  present  and  say: 

"That  Richard  Franklin  Pettigrew,  late  of  Minne- 
haha  County,  State  of  South  Dakota,  in  said  district 
heretofore,  to-wit:  on  the  sixth  day  of  October,  in  the 
year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  nine  hundred  and  seven 
teen,  at  and  in  the  County  of  Minnehaha,  State  of  South 
Dakota,  and  in  the  division  and  district  aforesaid,  and 
within  the  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  this  court,  and 
while  and  when  the  United  States  was  at  war  with  the 
Imperial  German  Government,  pursuant  to  a  joint 
resolution  of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  ap 
proved  by  the  President  of  the  United  States  on  April 
6,  A.  D.  1917,  did  then  and  there  feloniously  and  wil 
fully  cause  and  attempt  to  cause  disloyalty,  insubordi 
nation,  mutiny  and  refusal  of  duty  in  the  military 
forces  of  the  United  States,  to  the  injury  of  the  United 
States,  in  that  he,  the  said  Richard  Franklin  Pettigrew, 
did  then  and  there  feloniously  publicly  state,  say  and 
utter  to  one  P.  F.  Leavins,  and  to  other  persons  to  the 
Grand  Jurors  unknown,  and  did  then  and  there  direct 
and  cause  to  be  published,  printed  and  circulated 
through  and  by  means  of  the  'Daily  Argus  Leader,'  a 
daily  newspaper,  published  and  circulated  in  the  City 
of  Sioux  Falls,  State  of  South  Dakota,  in  words  and 
substance,  as  follows,  that  is  to  say : 

"  There  is  no  excuse  for  this  war.' 
'  4We  should  back  right  out  of  it.' 
"  'We  never  should  have  gone  into  a  war  to 
help  the  Schwabs  make  $40,000,000  per  year.7 
"  This  man  McAdop  said  here  that  we  are 
in  the  war  from  principle,  to  protect  our  right 
to  trade  on  the  open  sea.     Not  an  American 
was  killed  except  on  ammunition  boats,  and 
they  had  no  right  to  be  there.' 

"  'Sympathy  is  being  extended  to  Belgium. 
She  deserves  none.    Fifty  years  ago  Belgium 

380 


robbed  the  Congo.  This  made  Belgium 
wealthy,  but  three-fourths  of  her  people  did 
not  share  in  this  wealth.  If  she  is  now  in 
demnified  it  will  go  to  the  men  who  robbed  the 
negroes  of  the  Congo.' 

"  'One  hundred  years  ago  we  fought  out  the 
alien  and  sedition  law.  The  party  back  of  it 
failed  at  the  next  election.  The  same  struggle 
is  on  again/ 

"  'People  desire  to  know  if  they  are  living 
in  the  United  States  or  in  Russia/ 

against  the  peace  and  dignity  of  the  United  States  of 
America,  and  contrary  to  the  form,  force  and  effect 
of  the  statute  of  the  United  States  in  such  case  made 
and  provided. 

"R.  P.  STEWART, 

United  States  Attorney  in  and  for 
the  State  and  District  of  South  Dakota. 

"JAMES  ELLIOTT,  Judge. 

"Names  of  witnesses  sworn  and  examined  before  the 
Grand  Jurors:  P.  F.  Leavins." 

Was  I  indicted  because  I  had  told  a  lie  or  because 
I  had  told  the  truth?  Was  I  right  in  my  charges  or 
was  I  wrong?  Was  it  a  war  for  democracy  or  was 
it  a  profiteers'  war? 

I  did  not  have  to  wait  long  for  the  answer  to  these 
questions.  In  fact,  the  answer  came  with  a  rapidity 
and  with  a  completeness  that  was  overwhelming.  First, 
there  was  the  statement  from  the  Chairman  of  the 
Federal  Reserve  (Bank)  Board,  Mr.  Harding;  then 
came  the  revelations  with  regard  to  Hog  Island  and 
to  the  airplane  contracts;  later  Mr.  Wilson,  in  his  St. 
Louis  speech,  blurted  out  the  frank  admission — "Of 
course  this  was  a  commercial  war,"  and  finally  there 
appeared  the  figures  showing  the  profits  made  by  the 
leading  industries  during  the  war  years. 

For  example,  there  was  Bethlehem  Steel,  Schwab's 

S81 


own  plant.  The  profits  of  this  company  for  1911,  191 2 
and  1913  averaged  $3,075,108  per  year.  In  1915,  the 
profits  had  jumped  to  $17,762,813;  in  1916  to  $43,- 
593,968.  -For  1918,  the  corporation  made  a  profit  of 
$57,188,769.  Improvements  and  extensions  of  the 
plant  ate  up  $24,329,245,  while  depreciation  took  $31,- 
510,366.  See  my  indictment.  Schwab  exceeded  forty 
million  a  year. 

Again,  there  was  du  Pont  Powder  which  reports  its 
war  profits  in  the  following  words,  which  are  taken 
from  its  financial  report  for  1918.  "The  stock  of  the 
E.  I.  du  Pont  de  Nemours  Powder  Company,  the  pre 
decessor  of  the  E.  I.  du  Pont  de  Nemours  Company, 
sold  during  the  early  months  of  the  war  at  $125  per 
share.  The  share  of  debenture  stock  and  two  shares 
of  common  stock  of  E.  I.  du  Pont  de  Nemours  Com 
pany,  which  were  exchanged  for  the  former  security, 
are  worth  in  today's  market  (Dec.  31,  1918)  $593,  or 
an  increase  in  value  of  374  per  cent.  In  the  meantime 
(1915-18)  the  total  dividends  on  the  common  stock  of 
the  E.  I.  du  Pont  de  Nemours  Powder  Company  and 
on  the  exchanged  securities  of  E.  I.  du  Pont  de  Ne 
mours  Company  have  amounted  to  458  per  cent  on  th«B 
par  value  of  the  original  stock.  It  is  difficult  to  im 
agine  a  more  satisfactory  financial  result." 

It  is  difficult.  But  it  is  very  easy  to  picture  the 
misery  and  suffering  of  war  and  the  great  price  in  ex 
cessive  taxation  that  the  purchasers  of  the  du  Pont 
product  have  saddled  on  the  working  people  in  their 
respective  countries. 

Then  there  were  the  producers  of  copper.  The  Ana 
conda  Copper  Mining  Company  paid  $65,275,000  in 
cash  dividends  during  the  years  1915  to  1918.  It  also 
paid  off  a  funded  debt  of  $15,000,000  in  the  same 
period,  and  invested,  besides,  $54,466,703  in  better 
ments.  After  this  outlay,  it  had,  on  January  1,  1919, 
a  net  quick  surplus  of  $39,926,000  as  compared  with 
$4,688,204  in  1914.  The  twenty-nine  leading  copper 
producing  companies  paid  $540,846,855  in  cash  divi- 

382 


dends  during  191",  1916,  1917  and  1918;  expended 
$354,704,290  in  betterments  and  improvements  during 
1915,  1916  and  1917,' and  in  1918  their  surplus  was 
$330,798,593  as  compared  with  a  surplus  of  $96,711,392 
on  the  same  day  of  1914. 

The  United  States  Steel  Corporation,  with  a  capital 
stock  of  about  $750,000,000,  made  a  profit,  in  1916  and 
1917,  of  $888,931,511.  These  are  figures  published  by 
the  company  itself.  When  the  steel  Trust  was  formed 
this  capital  stock  represented  little  besides  water,  but 
during  two  war  years  the  corporation  made  over  100 
per  cent  on  it. 

These  are  individual  cases.  In  Senate  Document 
259,  65th  Congress,  Second  Session,  are  published  the 
figures  showing  the  profits  made  by  American  business 
men  during  the  year  1917.  This  document  contains 
388  pages,  and  in  it  are  listed,  by  number,  the  amount 
and  per  cent  of  profits  made  in  1917  by  American  busi 
ness  men.  The  results  are  almost  unbelievable. 
Among  the  industries  engaged  in  manufacturing  and 
selling  the  principal  necessaries  of  life  there  is  not  a 
single  trade  in  which  at  least  one  concern  did  not  make 
100  per  cent  or  more  on  the  capital  stock. 

The  profits  for  122  meat-packing  concerns  are  re 
ported  as  follows:  31  concerns  made  profits  for  the 
year  of  less  than  25  per  cent ;  45  made  profits  of  from 
25  per  cent  to  50  per  cent;  46  made  profits  of  over  50 
per  cent;  and  22  of  over  100  per  cent.  In  this  indus 
try,  half  of  the  concerns  made  a  profit  of  more  than 
50  per  cent  and  a  sixth  of  over  100  per  cent. 

These  sound  like  large  returns,  but  they  are  out 
distanced  by  the  figure  for  the  340  bituminous  coal  pro 
ducers  in  the  Appalachian  field.  Among  these  con 
cerns  there  were  only  23  that  reported  profits  of  less 
than  25  per  cent;  68  reported  profits  of  25  but  less 
than  50  per  cent;  79  reported  profits  of  from  50  to 
100  per  cent;  135  reported  profits  of  100  to  500  per 
cent ;  21  reported  profits  of  from  r  00  to  1000  per  cent, 
and  14  reported  profits  of  over  1000  per  cent.  Half  of 

883 


the  concerns  in  this  industry  showed  profits  of  more 
than  100  per  cent,  and  one  in  each  ten  reported  profits 
of  more  than  500  per  cent. 

The  whole  report  is  filled  with  just  such  figures. 
Profits  of  under  25  per  cent  are  unusual.  Profits  of  50 
per  cent;  100  per  cent,  and  500  per  cent  in  a  single- 
year  are  quite  common. 

How  moderate  I  had  been !  I  had  talked  about  our 
entrance  into  the  war  enabling  Schwab  and  his  asso 
ciates  to  make  forty  millions  a  year.  What  they  had 
actually  done  was  to  make  billions.  I  had  only  half 
stated  the  case  for  the  profiteers.  True  to  the  prin 
ciples  of  their  ferocious  system,  they  had  taken  advan 
tage  of  a  national  emergency  to  become  fabulously  rich. 

In  July,  1920,  I  wrote  the  Pittsburgh  Dispatch  the 
following  letter  which  they  published  at  once. 

"Sioux  Falls,  S.  Dak.,  July  24,  1920. 
"The  Pittsburgh  Dispatch, 
Pittsburgh,  Pa. 

"You  asked  me  to  answer  this  question: 
Was  the  object  of  the  war  gained?' 

"I  suppose  my  answer  must  be  confined  to 
the  United  States'  participation  in  that  con 
test.  So  far  as  the  United  States  is  con 
cerned,  the  very  object  and  only  object  for 
which  we  entered  the  war  has  been  fully 
gained.  We  went  into  the  war  because  the 
great  financial  and  industrial  interests  cen 
tered  in  New  York,  who  are  the  real  govern 
ment  of  the  United  States,  conceived  it  to  be 
for  their  gain  or  profit  to  put  the  United 
States  into  the  European  conflict.  They  had 
sold  billions  of  dollars'  worth  of  material  to 
England,  Russia,  France  and  Italy,  at  enor 
mous  prices,  reaping  a  marvelous  profit.  But 
as  the  war  progressed  and  the  demands  on  the 
part  of  those  nations  for  credit  increased,  the 

384 


financiers  and  controllers  of  American  indus 
try  who  were  furnishing  war  material,  be 
came  alarmed,  and  feared  they  would  not  be 
able  to  collect  their  claims  against  these 
European  nations  who  were  approaching 
bankruptcy,  and  they  therefore  determined  to 
put  the  United  States  into  that  controversy, 
and  have  the  United  States  loan  money  to  the 
European  nations,  to  pay  off  the  obligations 
which  they  held  against  them. 

"They,  therefore,  started  an  agitation  in 
the  United  States  to  work  up  the  people  of 
this  country  in  favor  of  going  into  the  war. 
They  bought  up,  or  already  owned,  all  the 
great  daily  newspapers.  They  ordered  and 
paid  for  preparedness  parades  in  every  town 
of  consequence  in  the  United  States.  They 
lied  to  and  deceived  the  American  people  with 
exaggerated  stories  of  the  German  atrocities, 
until  they  created  a  war  frenzy  in  this 
country. 

"They  had  been  at  work  on  the  President 
for  months.  They  had  a  committee,  a  secret 
committee,  paid  by  them,  planning  every 
phase  of  the  war  before  we  went  into  it. 

"E.  P.  C.  Harding,  of  the  Federal  Reserve, 
President  of  the  Bank  Board  of  the  United 
States,  on  March  22,  1917,  published  the  fol 
lowing  statement: 

"  'As  banker  and  creditor,  the  United  States 
would  have  a  place  at  the  peace  conference 
table,  and  be  in  a  much  better  position  to  re 
sist  any  proposed  repudiation  of  debts,  FOR 
IT  MIGHT  AS  WELL  BE  REMEMBERED 
THAT  WE  WILL  BE  FORCED  TO  TAKE 
UP  THE  CUDGELS  FOR  ANY  OF  OUR 
CITIZENS  OWNING  BONDS  THAT  MIGHT 
BE  REPUDIATED.' ' 

'The  above  was  issued  before  we  entered 

385 


the  war,  and  immediately  on  our  entering  the 
war,  these  corporations  rushed  through  a  loan 
to  the  European  countries,  not  one  dollar  of 
which  ever  went  to  Europe  except  in  the  form 
of  war  material. 

"As  a  result  of  the  war  the  United  States  is 
a  debtor  and  these  corporations  and  their  rep 
resentatives,  are  creditors  of  the  United 
States  instead  of  the  European  nations.  Their 
profits  run  into  the  tens  of  billions.  The  very 
object  for  which  we  went  to  war  has,  there 
fore,  been  fully  gained. 

''Conclusive  proof  in  the  fact  we  have  16,- 
500  more  millionaires  than  we  had  before  we 
went  into  the  war.  — R.  F.  Pettigrew." 

This  letter  states  the  whole  issue. 

The  country  was  in  peril.  Men  were  dying.  The 
energies  of  the  nation  were  being  directed  to  the  win 
ning  of  a  victory.  The  ignorant,  unthinking  millions 
were  being  mobilized  to  make  the  world  safe  for  de 
mocracy,  and  the  profiteers  were  piling  up  their  wealth. 

There  was  no  misunderstanding  about  this  matter. 
It  was  not  an  accident. 

The  profiteers  did  not  and  could  not  stop  profiteer 
ing  because  the  system  to  which  they  belong  is  a  profit 
eering  system.  The  profiteer  is  a  product  of  a  system 
of  society  that  provides  the  largest  rewards  for  the 
man  who  is  most  successful  in  robbing  his  fellows 
of  the  results  of  their  labor.  There  was  profiteering 
before  the  war — on  a  small  scale.  But  during  the 
war — in  a  critical  period — the  system  was  tested  and  it 
proved  to  be  what  many  of  us  had  thought  it — a  legal 
ized  system  of  robbery ;  a  method  of  enabling  the  rich 
to  live  off  the  toil  of  the  poor,  and  to  fatten  out  of 
their  privations. 

The  World  War  showed  capitalism  at  its  best  anc" 
at  its  worst.  In  every  one  of  the  great  capitalist 
countries  engaged  in  the  war,  the  same  kind  of  profit- 

386 


eering  went  on.  The  American  profiteers  made  more 
than  their  European  competitors  because  there  was 
more  to  make.  Everywhere  they  got  what  they  could. 
Capitalism  produced  the  war.  Capitalism  profited 
by  the  war.  The  utter  incompetence;  the  crass  bru 
tality  of  the  system  caused  it  to  break  in  Russia,  in 
Germany  and  Austria.  Today  it  is  in  full  swing, 
stronger  than  ever  in  England,  France  and  the  United 
States.  Will  the  people  who  do  the  work  and  pro 
duce  the  wealth  ever  realize  that  capital  is  stolen 
labor  and  its  only  function  is  to  steal  more  labor? 


387 


XXIX.     THE  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION 

The  war  was  an  affirmation  of  capitalism.  The 
Russian  Revolution  was  the  answer  of  the  workers. 
The  war  wrecked  most  of  the  capitalist  nations  of 
Europe — wrecked  them  financially  and  economically — 
and  those  that  survived  the  period  of  hostilities  were 
caught  in  the  maelstrom  of  high  prices  that  followed 
the  signing  of  the  Armistice.  During  more  than  four 
years  the  producers  of  Europe  turned  from  making 
useful  things  and  devoted  themselves  to  making  the 
means  of  destruction.  The  result  was  fatal.  Europ 
ean  capitalism  had  written  its  own  death  sentence. 

The  old  system  broke  down  first  in  Russia.  The 
revolution  began  there,  and  no  sooner  did  it  show  itself 
than  the  other  capitalist  nations — the  former  Allies  of 
Russia, — turned  against  her  and  fought  her  with 
armies,  with  a  blockade,  and  with  every  other  device 
that  military  and  diplomatic  experts  could  devise. 

The  demands  of  the  Russian  people  were  very  simple. 
They  asked  for  work,  bread  and  peace — three  things 
that  the  capitalist  system  in  Russia  was  unable  tc 
provide.  Hence  the  Revolution. 

There  have  been  scores  of  revolutions  during  the  past 
two  centuries,  and  after  each  one  of  them  that  proved 
successful,  the  people  have  written  a  Constitution  mod 
eled  on  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States — a  con 
stitution  that  permitted  the  economic  masters  to  carry 
on  their  work  of  exploitation  with  impunity.  The  Rus 
sians  abandoned  this  precedent. 

Instead  of  writing  a  political  constitution,  they  did 
a  very  new  and  a  very  wonderful  thing — they  wrote 
an  economic  constitution,  based  on  the  proposition  that 
the  exploitation  of  one  man  by  another  must  cease. 

The  Bill  of  Rights  was  added  to  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  as  an  afterthought.  It  is  not  in 
the  body  of  the  Constitution  at  all,  but  takes  the  form 
of  "amendments."  The  Russian  Constitution  begins 
with  a  Bill  of  Rights. 

388 


The  rights  enumerated  in  our  Constitution  are  civil 
rights,  free  speech,  free  press,  religious  freedom,  rights 
of  accused  persons,  rights  in  the  case  of  civil  trials. 
The  right  to  be  admitted  to  bail,  etc.  The  Russian  Bill 
of  Rights  begins  with  a  statement  of  economic  prin 
ciples.  Chaper  1  of  the  Bill  of  Rights  declares  the 
existence  of  a  Soviet  Republic  in  Russia.  Chapter  2 
begins  with  these  words, — "Bearing  in  mind,  as  its 
fundamental  problem,  the  abolition  of  exploitation  of 
men  by  men,  the  entire  abolition  of  the  division  of  the 
people  in  classes,  the  suppression  of  exploiters ;  the 
establishment  of  a  Socialist  society,  and  the  victory 
of  Socialism  in  all  lands,  the  Third  All-Russian  Con 
gress  of  Soviets  of  Workers',  Soldiers'  and  Peasants' 
Deputies  further  resolves: 

"a.  for  the  purpose  of  realizing  the  socialization  of 
land,  all  private  property  in  land  is  abolished,  and  the 
entire  land  is  declared  to  be  national  property  and  is  to 
be  apportioned  among  husbandmen  without  any  com 
pensation  to  the  former  owners,  in  the  measures  of 
each  one's  ability  to  till  it. 

"b.  all  forests,  treasures  of  the  earth,  and  waters  of 
general  public  utility,  all  implements,  whether  animate 
or  inanimate,  model  farms  and  agricultural  enterprises, 
are  declared  to  be  national  property. 

"c.  as  a  first  step  towards  the  complete  transfer  of 
ownership  to  the  Soviet  Republic  of  all  factories,  mills, 
mines,  railways,  and  other  means  of  production  and 
transportation,  the  Soviet  law  for  the  control  by  work 
men  and  the  establishment  of  the  Supreme  Soviet  of 
National  Economy  is  hereby  confirmed,  so  as  to  assure 
the  power  of  the  workers  over  the  exploiters. 

"d.  with  reference  to  international  banking  and  fi 
nance,  the  third  Congress  of  Soviets  is  discussing  the 
Soviet  decree  regarding  the  annulment  of  loans  made 
by  the  Government  of  the  Czar,  by  landowners  and  the 
bourgeoisie,  and  it  trusts  that  the  Soviet  Government 
will  firmly  follow  this  course  until  the  final  victory  of 

389 


the  international  workers'  revolt  against  the  oppres 
sion  of  capital. 

"e.  the  transfer  of  all  banks  into  the  ownership  of 
the  Workers'  and  Peasants'  Government,  as  one  of  the 
conditions  of  the  liberation  of  the  toiling  masses  from 
the  yoke  of  capital,  is  confirmed. 

"f.  universal  obligation  to  work  is  introduced  for  the 
purpose  of  eliminating  the  parasitic  strata  of  society 
and  organizing  the  economic  life  of  the  country." 

All  wealth  and  all  the  comforts  of  civilization  are  the 
products  of  labor  applied  to  the  earth.  Man  is  a  land 
animal  and  his  right  to  the  soil  is  inherent  and  funda 
mental.  The  chance  to  reach  the  land  and  the  right 
to  reach  it  are  as  great  as  the  right  to  use  the  air  and 
the  water  of  the  earth. 

The  Soviet  Constitution  allows  every  person  over 
eighteen  years  of  age  to  vote  if  they  are  engaged  in 
some  useful  employment. 

Thus  disfranchising  the  lawyers  and  the  preachers. 

A  lawyer  spends  the  first  half  of  his  life  over  the 
past  and  the  last  half  trying  to  apply  the  past  to  the 
present  and  lets  the  future  go  to  hell. 

A  preacher  spends  the  first  half  of  his  life  over  the 
past  and  the  last  half  over  the  future  and  lets  the  pres 
ent  go  to  hell.  I  am  sure  neither  are  engaged  in  a 
useful  occupation. 

Then  follows  a  provision  regarding  the  right  to  bear 
arms.  After  it  there  comes  the  forceful  and  splendid 
declaration  against  capitalist  imperialism  and  in  favor 
of  a  self-governing  and  self -determining  world.  Sec 
tions  4  and  5  of  Chapter  3  provide : 

"Expressing  its  absolute  resolve  to  liberate 
mankind  from  the  grip  of  capital  and  im 
perialism,  which  flooded  the  earth  with  blood 
in  this  present  most  criminal  of  all  wrars,  the 
third  Congress  of  Soviets  fully  agrees  with 
the  Soviet  Government  in  its  policy  of  break 
ing  secret  treaties,  of  organizing  on  a  wide 

390 


scale  the  fraternization  of  the  workers  and 
peasants  of  the  belligerent  armies,  and  of 
making  all  efforts  to  conclude  a  general  demo 
cratic  peace  without  annexations  or  indem 
nities,  upon  the  basis  of  the  free  determina 
tion  of  the  peoples. 

"It  is  also  to  this  end  that  the  third  Con 
gress  of  Soviets  insists  upon  putting  an  end 
to  the  barbarous  policy  of  the  bourgeois  civ 
ilization  which  enables  the  exploiters  of  a  few 
chosen  nations  to  enslave  hundreds  of  millions 
of  the  toiling  population  of  Asia,  of  the  col 
onies,  and  of  small  countries  generally." 

Following  this  protest  there  is  a  section  (8)  setting 
forth  the  attitude  of  the  Soviet  Government  toward 
those  portions  of  the  former  Russian  Empire  which 
were  not  yet  incorporated  into  the  Soviet  Republic : 

"In  its  effort  to  create  a  league — free  and 
voluntary,  and  for  that  reason  all  the  more 
complete  and  secure — of  the  working  classes 
of  all  the  peoples  of  Russia,  the  third  Con 
gress  of  Soviets  merely  establishes  the  funda 
mental  principles  of  the  federation  of  Russian 
Soviet  Republics,  leaving  to  the  workers  and 
peasants  of  every  people  to  decide  the  follow 
ing  question  at  their  plenary  sessions  of  their 
Soviets:  whether  or  not  they  desire  to  par 
ticipate,  and  on  what  basis,  in  the  federal  gov 
ernment  and  other  federal  Soviet  institu 
tions." 

Conservative  thinkers  and  publicists  deride  these 
provisions  on  the  ground  that  the  Soviet  Government 
has  not  yet  been  able  to  put  them  fully  into  practice. 
They  jest.  Have  we  been  able  to  enforce  the  Prohibi 
tion  Amendment?,  to  enfranchise  the  Negroes  in  ac 
cordance  with  the  provisions  of  amendment  14?,  to 
guarantee  the  right  of  free  speech  in  accordance  with 

391 


amendment  1  ?,  or  to  protect  American  citizens  against 
unreasonable  search  and  seizure  in  accordance  with 
amendment  4?  To  ask  these  questions,  is  to  answer 
them. 

A  Bill  of  Rights  presents  the  aspirations  and  the 
political  ideals  of  a  people — nothing  more.  The  ideals 
of  our  forefathers  were  of  a  political  nature,  as  is 
clearly  indicated  in  the  Bill  of  Rights  which  they  drew 
up.  In  the  same  way,  the  ideals  of  the  Russian  work 
ers  are  of  an  economic  nature,  as  is  clearly  indicated 
by  the  Bill  of  Rights  which  they  have  drawn  up. 

The  times  have  changed  since  the  Constitutional 
Convention  met  in  1787.  Then  men  were  striving  for 
political  freedom.  Now  they  are  seeking  economic 
emancipation.  It  is  all  part  of  the  same  struggle — for 
liberty,  but  the  new  times  have  called  forth  new  ideals. 
The  Russian  Bill  of  Rights  is  a  new  step  and  a  long  step 
in  the  direction  of  freedom. 

There  were  nearly  170  millions  of  people  in  Russia 
when  the  war  began  in  1914.  After  three  years  of 
bloody  struggle  they  demanded  work,  bread  and  peace, 
and  they  proceeded  to  get  these  things  in  the  only  way 
that  the  workers  will  ever  get  them  from  the  masters 
— by  taking  them.  The  beneficiaries  of  privilege  will 
not  yield  unless  they  are  compelled  to  by  force  of  cir 
cumstances  that  are  too  strong  for  them  to  control. 
The  embodiment  of  that  force  is  the  organized  will  of 
the  people  who  do  the  worlds'  work. 

The  Russian  Revolution  is  the  greatest  event  of  our 
times.  It  marks  the  beginning  of  the  epoch  when  the 
working  people  will  assume  the  task  of  directing  and 
controlling  industry.  It  blazes  a  path  into  this  un 
known  country,  where  the  workers  of  the  world  are 
destined  to  take  from  their  exploiters  the  right  to  con 
trol  and  direct  the  economic  affairs  of  the  community. 


392 


XXX.     THE  LEAGUE  TO  PERPETUATE  WAR 

The  war  has  just  begun.  I  said  that  when  the  Arm 
istice  terms  were  published  and  when  I  read  the  Treaty 
and  the  League  Covenant  I  felt  more  than  ever  con 
vinced  of  the  justice  of  my  conclusion.  The  Treaty  of 
Versailles  is  merely  an  armistice — a  suspension  of  hos 
tilities,  while  the  combatants  get  their  wind.  There 
is  a  war  in  every  chapter  of  the  Treaty  and  in  every 
section  of  the  League  Covenant ;  war  all  over  the  world ; 
war  without  end  so  long  as  the  conditions  endure  which 
produce  these  documents.  The  League  of  Nations  is  a 
League  to  perpetuate  war.  I  do  not  charge  that  its 
sponsors  intended  this,  though  I  have  sufficient  respect 
for  the  intellectual  ability  of  men  like  Balfour  and 
Lloyd  George,  Makino  and  Orlando  to  believe  that  they 
knew  quite  well  what  they  were  about.  But  whether 
by  intention  or  accident,  the  "Big  Five'*  presented  the 
world  with  two  documents,  the  attempted  enforcement 
of  which  is  destined  to  bathe  the  earth  in  blood  and 
wipe  out  what  remains  of  "western  civilization." 

The  advocates  of  the  League  of  Nations  claim  for 
it  that  it  will  end  war.  "If  we  do  not  adopt  it,"  says 
Mr.  Wilson,  "we  will  break  the  heart  of  the  world."  If 
we  do  adopt  it,  we  shall  help  to  bleed  the  western  world 
white  in  the  series  of  frightful  international  struggles 
that  will  follow  upon  any  attempt  to  enforce  the  Treaty 
and  the  League  Covenant  as  they  are  written. 

Let  me  state,  briefly,  my  reasons  for  believing  that 
the  League  of  Nations  is  a  War  League  rather  than  a 
Peace  League. 

1.  The  League  of  Nations  is  not  a  league  of  all  na 
tions.  On  the  contrary,  three  kinds  of  nations  are 
deliberately  excluded  from  it, — the  Socialist  nations 
like  Russia ;  the  enemy  nations,  like  Germany ;  and  the 
"undeveloped  nations,"  like  Mexico.  The  "Big  Five" 
who  wrote  the  Armistice  Terms,  the  Peace  Treaty  and 
the  League  Covenant  were  Great  Britain,  France,  Italy, 
Japan  and  the  United  States.  These  are  the  five  great 

393 


capitalist  empires  of  the  world.  They  are  also  the 
five  leaders  among  the  allied  nations.  The  League  is 
therefore  a  Holy  Alliance  of  capitalist  empires  against 
socialist  states ;  a  League  of  the  Allies  against  the  Cen 
tral  Powers ;  a  League  of  the  five  great  exploiting  na 
tions  of  the  world  against  those  whom  they  propose  to 
rob.  This  situation  creates  a  series  of  alignments  any 
one  of  which  may  lead  to  an  outbreak  at  almost  any 
moment. 

2.  On  the  one  hand,  there  is  the  alignment  against 
Russia.  Ever  since  the  Revolution  of  1917,  the  Allies 
have  done  everything  in  their  power  to  destroy  the 
government  of  Russia.  They  have  sent  their  armies 
against  her  at  Vladivostock  and  at  Archangel;  they 
have  attacked  her  with  their  fleets  on  the  Black  Sea 
and  in  the  Baltic;  they  have  financed  and  equipped 
those  like  Yudenich,  Kolchak,  Denikine  and  Wrangle 
who  were  in  rebellion  against  the  established  govern 
ment  of  Russia;  they  have  financed  and  equipped  the 
Ukranians,  the  Finns  and  the  Poles,  on  condition  that 
they  should  make  war  on  Russia;  they  have  estab 
lished  a  "sanitary  cordon"  of  border  states  in  an  effort 
to  cut  Russia  off  from  the  rest  of  Europe;  they  have 
maintained  a  blockade  which  has  resulted  in  the  death, 
by  starvation  and  by  disease,  of  Russian  men,  women 
and  children.  During  three  long  years,  the  Allies  have 
carried  on  these  activities  without  succeeding  in  forc 
ing  a  declaration  of  war  from  Russia. 

The  Russian  people  are  very  patient.  They  had 
need  of  patience  under  the  Czars,  but  there  is  a  limit 
to  everything.  There  are  a  hundred  and  fifty  million 
of  Russians.  These  people  feel  bitter  against  the  cap 
italist  governments  that  have  attacked  and  blockaded 
them.  They  have  an  army — the  largest  now  in  Europe, 
if  report  speaks  true.  Some  day  that  army  will  come 
into  action  against  the  armies  of  the  Allies — come  with 
the  fervor  and  ardor  of  revolution,  and  when  it  comes, 
Europe  will  witness  another  terrible  massacre  and 
another  fearful  destruction  of  wealth. 

394 


3.  Then,  there  are  the  enemy  countries — defeated 
in  the  great  war,  stripped  of  their  navies  and  of  their 
merchant  ships ;  of  their  colonies ;  of  their  investments 
in  foreign  countries;  of  their  coal  and  iron;  dismem 
bered,  saddled  with  heavy  indemnities  in  addition  to 
their  onerous  taxes.     These  enemy  countries  are  suf 
fering  under  the  smart  of  a  terrible  military  defeat. 
But  more  than  that,  after  revolting  and  driving  out 
their  despotic  rulers  they  have  been  subjected  to  an 
economic  punishment  more  frightful  than  any  that  has 
ever  been  administered  in  modern  times.     The  gov 
erning  classes  feel  this ;  the  people  feel  it,  and  they  are 
all  ready,  at  the  first  opportunity,  to  rush  to  arms  in 
vindication  of  their  international  position  and  of  their 
national  rights,  which  they  believe  were  grossly  vio 
lated  by  the  Treaty  of  Versailles.     No  opportunity  was 
lost;  no  effort  was  spared  to  humiliate  the  defeated 
and  to  visit  upon  them  a  drastic  economic  punishment. 
The  vanquished  and  humiliated  are  preparing  to  come 
back,  and  the  Allied  Nations  know  it. 

4.  There  are  the  exploited  countries;  the  "unde 
veloped"  portions  of  the  earth;  the  promising  invest 
ment  field ;  the  good  markets — Mexico,  India,  Korea, 
Egypt,  Persia,  China  and  the  others.     Africa  has  been 
under  the  heel  of  Western  business  men  for  genera 
tions.     The  same  thing  is  true  of  India  and  other  por 
tions  of  Western  and  Southern  Asia.     These  peoples, 
numbering  hundreds  of  millions,  have  been  kept  in  ig 
norance  and  held  in  bondage,  while  the  British,  Ger 
man,  French,  Belgian  and  other  traders  and  investors 
made  free  with  their  property  and  their  lives.     In  the 
Belgian  Congo,  the  black  men  were  treated  with  in 
describable  cruelty;  the  people  of  India,  after  a  cen 
tury  and  a  half  of  British  rule,  are  almost  wholly 
illiterate,  while  their  industries  have  been  deliberately 
curtailed  in  order  that  the  Indian  market  might  be 
open  for  British  manufacturers.     Mexico  has  been  vic 
timized  again  and  again  by  the  United  States.     Hayti, 
Santo  Domingo  and  Nicaragua  have  felt  the  weight 

395 


of  America's  imperial  fist.  Under  the  Treaty,  with  its 
"Mandates"  and  its  guarantees  of  territorial  integrity, 
these  peoples,  comprising  the  bulk  of  the  world's  popu 
lations,  are  to  be  continued  in  "tutelage"  while^llied 
Capitalists  plunder  and  allied  governments  tax  and  kill. 

The  Baku  Conference  of  the  Eastern  People  (Sep 
tember,  1920)  is  the  beginning  of  an  organized  protest 
that  challenges  the  right  of  the  west  to  continue  its 
exploitation  of  the  East.  India  is  aflame  with  revolt, 
and  the  smaller  eastern  countries  are  awaiting  the  sig 
nal  to  begin  a  holy  war,  a  religious  crusade,  against  the 
domination  of  Western  Civilization.  Whether  the  pro 
posed  expulsion  of  the  Sultan  from  Europe  will  start 
the  conflagration,  or  whether  some  other  spark  will 
set  it  off  remains  to  be  seen.  But  the  spirit  of  liberation 
is  abroad  in  the  earth,  and  any  group  of  nations  that 
seeks,  with  or  without  a  covenant,  to  continue  a  system 
of  virtual  slavery,  is  heading  for  bitter  and  terrible 
conflicts. 

5.  Finally,  there  is  an  item  of  immense  significance. 
The  "Big  Five"  are  five  capitalist  empires,  each  one  of 
which  is  struggling  for  markets  and  for  investment  op 
portunities.  Britain  and  Germany  fought  the  recent 
war  because  Germany  challenged  Britain's  economic 
supremacy.  Today  each  of  the  Big  Five  is  busy  with 
just  such  an  economic  battle  as  that  which  preceded  the 
war  of  1914.  British  and  American  oil  interests  are  in 
open  conflict;  Japan  is  seeking  to  exclude  western 
bankers  from  the  Chinese  field;  France  and  Italy  are 
bitter  rivals  for  the  control  of  the  Mediterranean; 
Britain  and  France  are  contending  for  the  resources 
of  Central  Europe  and  of  the  near  East.  Besides  that, 
it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  naval  and  military  ap 
propriations  are  larger  among  the  Big  Five  than  they 
were  before  the  world  war. 

Any  one  of  these  issues  may  lead  to  war — between 
the  Allies  and  Russia ;  between  the  Allies  and  the  Cen 
tral  Powers;  between  the  Allies  and  the  victims  of 
their  exploitation ;  between  the  Allies  themselves.  One 

396 


or  more  of  them  is  sure  to  result  in  war  within  a  decade, 
if  the  Treaty  and  the  League  Covenant  are  enforced. 
The  League  of  Nations  is  a  League  of  War ;  its  present 
form,  its  very  existence  spells  war. 

I  have  another  reason  for  insisting  that  the  League 
will  make  for  war  rather  than  for  peace — a  reason 
growing  out  of  the  League's  own  record.  During  its 
brief  existence,  the  League  has  witnessed  more  than 
a  score  of  wars  in  Europe,  Africa,  and  in  Asia.  These 
wars  have  been  participated  in  by  Great  Britain, 
France,  Italy  and  Japan — the  leading  exponents  of  the 
League.  France  has  sent  men  and  money  to  back  Po 
land  and  to  uphold  General  Wrangle's  insurrection 
against  the  Russian  Government,  while  her  armies  are 
busy  conquering  and  subjugating  Syria.  Great  Bri 
tain  is  fighting  in  Ireland  and  in  Mesopotamia.  Spain, 
France  and  Italy  all  are  fighting  in  North  Africa,  and 
Thrace  is  being  ravaged  by  contending  armies. 

Since  the  League  came  into  being,  Europe  has  blazed 
with  war.  The  League  is  not  a  war  preventor,  but  a 
war  maker. 

So  much  for  the  character  and  history  of  the  League. 
Now  as  to  its  purposes.  These  are  three  in  number: 

1.  To  crush  out  Socialism. 

2.  To  safeguard  the  British  Empire. 

3.  To  unite  the  exploiters  against  the  exploited. 

The  relation  of  the  League  and  of  its  principal  mem 
bers  toward  Soviet  Russia  is  a  sufficient  guarantee  of 
the  first  point.  The  position  of  the  British  Empire, 
combined  with  the  working  of  Article  X  of  the  League 
Covenant  establishes  the  second. 

British  statesmen  insisted  that  they  desired  nothing 
as  a  result  of  the  war.  As  things  turned  out,  however, 
they  received  over  two  million  square  miles,  including 
important  possessions  in  East  Africa,  Mesopotamia, 
the  lands  bordering  the  Red  Sea  and  the  Persian  Gulf, 
Persia,  Thibet,  and  the  German  possessions  in  the 
South  Pacific.  This  gives  the  British  Empire  control 
over  something  like  a  third  of  the  earth,  including  a 

397 


continuous  stretch  of  territory  from  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope  to  Cairo  and  from  Cairo  to  Bengal.  These  things 
are  guaranteed  under  the  Treaty,  and  Articlce  X  of  the 
Covenant  provides  that :  "The  members  of  the  League 
undertake  to  respect  and  preserve  against  external 
aggression,  the  territorial  integrity  and  existing  politi 
cal  independence  of  all  members  of  the  League."  This 
clause  commits  all  members  of  the  League  to  back  the 
British  Empire  in  its  efforts  to  hold  hundreds  of  mil 
lions  of  human  beings  in  subjection. 

The  original  Holy  Alliance  organized  in  1815  be 
tween  Austria,  Russia,  Prussia  and  France,  carried  a 
mutual  guarantee  to  protect  from  internal  disturbances 
like  the  French  Revolution,  the  members  of  the  Alli 
ance.  This  new  Alliance  guarantees  its  members 
against  the  possible  loss  of  their  colonies  and  posses 
sions  by  any  form  of  external  oppression.  They  bind 
each  other  to  help  hold  what  they  have  stolen  in  this 
and  previous  wars.  According  to  the  original  plan, 
the  United  States  was  to  furnish  the  men  and  the 
money  necessary  to  carry  this  Covenant  into  effect. 

The  League  is  intended  to  organize  and  unite  the 
exploiter  nations.  Under  Covenant  provisions,  the  ex 
ploited  nations  have  no  rights  that  the  exploiters  are 
bound  to  respect.  Japanese  troops  will  remain  in 
Korea;  British  rule  stays  in  India  and  American  Ma 
rines  hold  their  ground  in  Hayti.  The  robbers  will 
unite  and  plunder  their  victims  in  severalty. 

Thus,  the  League  is  intended,  not  to  secure  freedom 
and  self-determination,  but  to  perpetuate  autocracy 
and  the  rule  of  force  of  which  the  leading  members 
of  the  league  are  the  chief  exponents. 

The  Treaty  and  the  League  Covenant  intensify  every 
cause  that  led  up  to  the  world  war.  International 
Capitalism,  with  its  economic  rivalries  and  commercial 
struggles  is  perpetuated  and  consecrated;  the  exploi 
tation  of  the  weak  by  the  rich  and  the  strong  is  pro 
vided  for ;  out  of  such  a  situation  there  can  come  noth 
ing  less  than  revolution  and  a  struggle  for  indepen- 

398 


dence  on  the  one  hand  and  the  bitterest  conflicts  be 
tween  the  members  of  the  League  on  the  other.  The 
League  will  perpetuate,  will  compel  war.  It  makes 
peace  unthinkable ;  impossible.  It  condemns  the  world 
to  generations  of  blood-letting  and  destruction.  The 
League  is  a  logical  product  of  the  forces  that  made  the 
last  war  and  will  prove  an  instrument  of  immense 
value  in  bringing  about  the  next  one. 


399 


XXXI.     THE  1920  ELECTION 

The  World  War  gave  the  business  interests  the  op 
portunity  for  which  they  had  been  waiting.  At  the 
same  time  that  they  made  millions  they  were  able  to 
come  out  in  the  open  as  the  controlling  force  in  Ameri 
can  public  life.  Their  answer  to  the  Russian  Revolu 
tion  revealed  their  international  stand.  The  events 
surrounding  the  election  of  1920  showed  how  far  they 
were  ready  to  go  in  dominating  the  lives  of  the  Ameri 
can  people. 

I  spent  the  winter  of  1919-1920  in  Washington  and 
New  York,  where  I  paid  close  attention  to  the  business 
situation.  I  was  particularly  interested  in  the  question 
as  to  whether  a  panic  was  going  to  be  ordered  by  the 
New  York  bankers. 

The  masters  of  business  life  discussed  the  high  cost 
of  living,  in  other  words,  the  cost  of  food  and  raw  ma 
terial,  and  how  to  reduce  prices.  They  knew  that  the 
inflation  of  the  currency  was  what  had  increased  the 
price  of  all  articles  not  controlled  by  the  trusts,  and  they 
discussed  the  question  of  contracting  the  volume  of 
money,  for  we  have  in  circulation  in  the  United  States 
today  nearly  fifty-nine  dollars  per  capita  as  against 
seventeen  dollars  in  1880.  But  the  issue  of  money 
under  the  present  system  is  very  profitable  to  the  bank 
ers.  They  had  made  more  than  a  billion  out  of  the 
issue  of  money  since  the  United  States  went  into  the 
war,  and  had  inflated  the  currency,  since  the  present 
bank  act  wrent  into  effect,  by  several  billions  of  dollars. 
The  bankers  disliked  to  contract  the  currency  because 
the  issue  of  money  is  so  profitable,  and  they  finally  hit 
upon  another  method  and  said,  "We  will  contract  the 
credit." 

There  were  two  fields  in  which  it  was  possible  to 
contract  credit.  One  was  the  field  of  big  business.  The 
other  was  the.  field  of  agriculture.  A  contraction  of 
credit  to  big  business  would  have  hit  manufacturers 
and  merchants  (themselves).  A  contraction  of  agri- 

400 


cultural  credits,  on  the  other  hand,  would  hit  only  the 
farmers  who  are  unorganized  and  in  no  position  to 
strike  back.  A  decision  was  therefore  made  to  curtail 
credit  by  compelling  all  the  banks  to  restrict  their  loans 
in  the  farm-producing  area  of  the  United  States. 

After  the  whole  matter  had  been  argued  through,  an 
order  was  sent  out  from  New  York  to  all  of  the  reserve 
banks  throughout  the  United  States  to  restrict  their 
loans  and  to  refuse  credit  on  all  the  products  of  human 
toil  not  controlled  by  the  combinations.  The  result  has 
been,  of  course,  the  reduction  in  the  price  of  everything 
that  is  produced  on  the  farm.  Meat,  corn,  cotton,  pats 
and  hay  are  all  far  below  their  spring  selling  prices, 
not  because  crops  were  unusually  large,  but  because  the 
farmers  were  compelled  to  sell  all  of  their  crops  in  the 
market  at  the  same  time.  They  were  compelled  to  sell 
because  they  could  not  borrow.  They  would  not  bor 
row,  not  because  money  was  scarce — there  is  more 
money  in  the  country  than  at  any  time  in  its  history — 
but  because  the  banks  refused  it  to  the  farmers.  Dur 
ing  this  same  time  loans  were  made  to  Norway,  Bel 
gium,  France.  There  was  plenty  of  money  for  that,  but 
food  prices  must  come  down,  and  the  way  to  bring 
them  down  was  to  compel  the  farmers  to  sell  by  with 
drawing  all  credits  and  calling  all  existing  loans. 

While  American  farmers  were  being  refused  credit, 
the  Bankers'  Club,  which  is  the  government  of  the 
United  States,  entered  into  a  "consortium"  with  the 
bankers  of  England,  France  and  Japan  to  loan  money 
to  China  for  railroad  concessions  and  concessions  of 
minerals  and  coal.  Vanderlip  and  Lamont  were  in 
China  all  through  April  getting  these  concessions.  This 
contract  between  the  United  States,  England,  France 
and  Japan  is  a  written  contract  and  the  Secretary  of 
State  is  a  party  to  it ;  and  yet  the  people  of  the  United 
States  are  refused  access  to  it. 

This  same  club  in  New  York,  composed  of  the  bank 
ers  and  the  great  industries,  discussed  the  question  of 
the  cost  of  labor.  They  said,  "Labor  is  clamoring  for 

401 


more  pay  because  of  the  high  cost  of  living.  We  can 
reduce  the  cost  of  living  by  withdrawing  credit  and 
robbing  the  farmers,  but  we  must  also  reduce  wages," 
and  they  discussed  for  weeks  the  question  of  importing 
Chinese  and  Japanese  laborers  from  the  Orient.  Their 
newspapers  began  to  agitate  the  question,  feeling  out 
the  public,  but  the  opposition  was  so  strong  against 
taking  down  the  bars  and  importing  coolie  labor  that 
they  turned  their  attention  to  Europe  and  made  ar 
rangements  for  the  importation  of  laborers  from  the 
starving  centers  of  Europe  at  wages  that  would  send 
an  American  laborer  to  the  poorhouse.  These  Euro 
peans  are  now  coming  in  at  the  rate  of  100,000  a  month. 
It  is  contract  labor,  in  violation  of  the  laws  of  the 
United  States. 

Unless  American  wages  were  reduced,  it  would  be 
impossible  for  American  manufacturers  to  compete  in 
foreign  markets,  and  unless  food  prices  came  down, 
wages  could  not  be  reduced  without  lowering  efficiency. 
Therefore,  the  food  prices  came  down  and  the  farmers 
stood  the  loss,  and  this  was  done  on  the  eve  of  an  elec 
tion.  In  years  gone  by  the  business  interests  would 
not  have  dared  to  operate  so  openly.  That  they  do  it 
now  is  the  proof  of  their  power,  and  of  the  contempt  in 
which  they  hold  the  American  people. 

So  much  for  the  events  which  preceded  the  election. 
It  was  a  period  of  open-handed  assumption  of  power  by 
the  business  interests.  Now  for  the  campaign  itself. 

My  interests  were  centered  on  the  Republican  cam 
paign  because  it  was  evident  from  the  start  that  the 
Republicans  were  destined  to  win. 

The  Republican  Convention  was  a  very  grand  affair- 
I  arrived  in  Chicago  on  the  second  and  stayed  until  the 
twelfth  of  June,  and  saw  the  whole  operation.  I  had  a 
friend  who  has  been  a  member  of  the  Republican  Na 
tional  Convention  for  forty  years,  and  has  been  one  of 
the  leaders  in  every  convention,  and  he  reported  each 
morning — between  one  and  two  o'clock — the  result  of 
every  conference,  so  that  I  knew  in  advance  just  what 

402 


the  convention  was  going  to  do  the  next  day;  and  it 
always  functioned  according  to  program. 

The  representatives  of  the  great  interests  arrived 
in  a  body  and  took  charge  of  the  convention  from  the 
start.  It  is  the  first  time  they  have  ever  done  this. 
There  was  Gary,  head  of  the  Steel  Corporation;  Davi- 
son  and  Lamont  of  Morgan  &  Co. ;  F.  H.  Allen  of  Lee 
Higginson  &  Co. ;  Atterbury,  vice-president  of  the  Penn 
sylvania  Railroad,  and  Dick  Mellen,  of  Pittsburgh, 
whose  family  is,  I  suppose — next  to  Rockefeller — the 
richest  in  America.  Then  there  were  George  Baker 
and  Frank  Vanderlip  and  Daniel  G.  Reid.  These  men 
took  no  chances.  They  went  to  Chicago,  wrote  the 
platform,  and  nominated  the  candidate.  They  were 
willing  to  take  Lowden  or  Wood,  but  Borah  said  that 
he  would  bolt  the  convention  if  they  named  either  one 
of  them.  They  were  holding  Knox  and  Hoover,  Har 
ding  and  Senator  Watson  of  Indiana  in  reserve,  and 
were  willing  to  take  any  one  of  them,  but  they  did  not 
want  a  bolt  in  the  party. 

These  financiers  are  the  men  who  put  the  United 
States  into  the  European  war.  They  furnished  the 
money  to  pay  for  preparedness  parades  all  over  the 
country ;  they  are  out  for  empire-  They  wanted  to  put 
a  plank  into  the  platform  providing  for  a  league  of 
nations,  or,  rather,  the  Versailles  Treaty  with  mild 
reservations,  and  they  had  prepared  such  a  plank  and 
they  would  have  adopted  it,  but  Borah  and  Johnson 
went  before  the  committee  and  told  them  they  would 
bolt  if  they  put  that  plank  into  the  platform.  That,  of 
course,  destroyed  Knox's  chances,  for  he  had  agreed  in 
advance  that  he  would  stand  by  and  carry  out  such  a 
plank  if  he  were  nominated;  but  without  the  plank 
these  men  would  not  trust  Knox,  and  that  ended  his 
chance  for  the  nomination. 

They  then  canvassed  Sproul  of  Pennsylvania,  but 
Penrose  wired  that  he  would  not  stand  for  Sproul,  who 
was  trying  to  administer  his  political  estate  before  he 
was  dead.  They  finally  concluded  that  Harding  was  the 

403 


man  least  objectionable  and  most  certain  to  stand  right 
on  their  plans  to  exploit  the  rest  of  the  world.  In  other 
words,  Harding  was  from  Ohio — which  they  must  carry 
in  order  to  win — and  he  was  ,sound  on  the  question  of  the 
commercial  conquest  of  the  earth  by  the  United  States. 

The  business  interests  named  Harding.  They  would 
have  preferred  a  stronger  man — Knox  of  Pennsylvania 
was  the  favorite — but  Harding  was  more  available,  so 
Harding  was  chosen. 

Just  a  word  as  to  the  record  of  this  latest  President 
of  "the  greatest  community  on  earth,"  as  published  in 
the  "Searchlight,"  after  a  careful  study  of  his  six  years 
in  the  Senate: 

"Harding  probably  ranks  below  every  other  Senator 
in  initiative,  activity  and  accomplishment^ 

"Neither  his  friends  nor  his  enemies  can  connect  his 
name  with  a  single  outstanding  issue,  good  or  bad. 

"He  neither  introduced  nor  championed  even  one  big 
constructive  measure. 

"He  was  absent  or  dodged  1,170  roll  calls  and  quorum 
calls. 

"All  the  bills  and  resolutions  he  introduced  were  local 
or  private  in  character,  except  eight.  None  of  these 
eight  was  of  big  importance. 

"In  all  matters  of  politics,  economics  and  spoils  he 
was  a  follower  of  the  Old  Guard  bosses — Penrose, 
Smoot  and  Lodge. 

"On  issues  at  all  important  he  voted  with  the  pro 
gressive  group  only  nine  times  in  six  years. 

"He  has  voted  for  the  liquor  interests  thirty  times, 
and  against  them  only  twice. 

"He  favored  woman  suffrage  after  much  reluctance 
and  indecision. 

"He  voted  for  the  Cummins  Railroad  Bill,  with  its 
anti-strike  provision. 

"He  stood  consistently  against  conservation,  voted 
for  the  vicious  Shields  water  power  bill  several  times. 

"On  every  important  test  between  capital  and  labor, 
he  voted  with  capital. 

404 


"He  opposed  public  ownership  in  every  form. 

"On  revenue  measures,  he  voted  against  every 
amendment  to  increase  the  tax  upon  profiteering  and 
large  incomes. 

"He  voted  and  spoke  for  conscription  as  a  permanent 
policy. 

"He  opposed  disarmament  for  all  nations." 

Harding  never  read  the  Declaration  of  Indepen 
dence  and  never  heard  of  Thomas  Jefferson.  Discuss 
ing  Philippine  independence  January  28,  1916,  Harding 
said :  Independence  was  not  the  inspiration  of  the  War 
of  the  Revolution.  .  .  .  The  American  Republic  never 
gave  a  thought  to  the  "consent  of  the  governed"; 
never  gave  a  thought  to  the  violation  of  "inalienable 
rights"  ...  I  know  what  is  in  our  hearts.  .  .  .  And 
if  we  are  to  go  into  the  Orient  for  an  expansion  of  com 
merce  and  trade,  I  fancy  that  the  possession  of  these 
rich  islands  will  be  very  much  to  our  advantage.' ' 

The  big  bankers,  who  dominate  our  foreign,  as  they 
dominate  our  domestic  policy,  have  registered  their  full 
determination  to  take  the  billions  they  made  out  of  the 
war  as  profiteers  and  reach  out  for  the  oil  and  iron  and 
coal  of  the  world  and,  by  concessions  and  the  grant  of 
privileges,  exploit  the  great  natural  resources  not  only 
of  North  and  South  America,  but  of  Asia  and  Africa. 
Vanderlip  and  Lamont  spent  all  of  April  and  half  of 
May  in  China  and  Japan,  securing  concessions  for  build 
ing  railroads  and  the  right  to  develop  the  great  coal, 
oil  and  iron  deposits  of  that  country.  They  had  their 
agents  also  in  Siberia.  Their  program  is  to  make  a 
contract  with  Mexico — they  are  going  to  call  it  a  treaty 
— by  which  they  can  exploit  all  the  resources  of  Mex 
ico.  If  Mexico  will  not  make  the  treaty,  after  Harding 
is  inaugurated,  our  army  will  march  into  that  country. 
They  will  proceed  at  once  to  build  a  bigger  navy  than 
England  has,  and  they  are  fully  determined  to  use  the 
resources  of  the  navy  of  the  United  States  to  carry  out 
their  imperial  policy.  They  proposed  to  continue  to  ex 
ploit  the  laborers  of  this  country  and  force  what  they 

405 


plunder  from  labor  on  to  the  other  nations  of  the  world 
by  commercial  regulations  and  concessions,  which  are 
to  be  backed  up  by  the  full  force  of  the  army  and  the 
navy  of  the  United  States. 

We  are  no  longer  a  republic  or  democracy  or  any 
semblance  of  either  one.  The  entrance  of  the  United 
States  into  the  great  war  extinguished  all  possibilities 
in  that  direction.  We  are  a  feudal  aristocracy  with 
artificial  persons  for  our  feudal  lords,  the  most  cruel 
form  of  society  it  is  possible  to  imagine.  The  old  feudal 
aristocracy  was  composed  of  natural  persons  with  some 
human  sympathy;  but  our  feudal  lords  have  none  of 
these  attributes. 

The  situation  leads  me  to  repeat  what  I  cannot  say 
too  often — that  capital  is  stolen  labor  and  its  only  func 
tion-is  to  steal  more  labor.  This  has  been  true  since 
Lincoln  pointed  it  out  more  than  seventy  years  ago, 
and  it  is  equally  true  today  when  the  power  in  the 
hands  of  the  capitalists  is  greater  than  it  has  been  at 
any  time  in  history. 

Back  of  all  this  program  are  the  voters  of  the  United 
States.  Thrilled  by  the  World  War;  terrified  by  the 
"Bolshevist  Menace,"  as  it  has  been  described  by  the 
press;  lukewarm  on  the  question  of  mixing  up  in  the 
chaos  of  European  politics  and  finance ;  stimulated  and, 
at  the  same  time,  reassured  by  four  years  of  extraordi 
nary  "prosperity,"  sixteen  millions  of  voters  went  to 
the  polls  on  November  2,  1920,  and  cast  their  votes  for 
Harding,  the  nominee  of  Big  Business — the  acceptable 
and  accepted  representative  of  the  most  sinister  forces 
in  American  public  life.  Harding's  plurality  of  seven 
millions — unprecedented  in  presidential  elections,  gives 
the  Republican  party  an  assurance  of  at  least  eight 
years  of  unquestioned  power. 

The  Great  War  is  over.  Peace  has  been  restored. 
Sanity  is  .supposed  to  have  replaced  the  hysteria  of  war 
frenzy.  Yet  Harding,  spokesman  of  plutocratic  imperi 
alism,  is  in  the  White  House,  while  Debs,  the  champion 
of  economic  emancipation,  is  in  the  Atlanta  penitentiary. 

406 


XXXII.     CAPITALISM 

The  people  of  the  United  States  are  playing  with  fire. 
They  are  experimenting  with  an  unworkable  system  of 
social  organization — a  system  that  has  been  tried  re 
peatedly  during  the  past  three  or  four  thousand  years, 
and  that  has  destroyed  civilization  as  often  as  it  has 
been  tried.  The  form  of  the  experiments  has  been  dif 
ferent,  but  their  essential  features  remain  the  same. 

Let  me  review  these  features  briefly,  because  they  lie 
at  the  foundation  of  our  whole  public  life. 

First,  there  is  the  concentration  of  wealth  in  the 
hands  of  a  few  men — "self-made,"  "irresponsible" — 
owing  no  allegiance  to  anything  save  our  own  des 
tinies  and  their  own  ambitions.  These  wealth-lords,  or 
plutocrats,  ruling  by  virtue  of  their  wealth,  have  been 
the  bane  of  every  great  civilization  from  Assyria  and 
Egypt  to  Rome,  Spain  and  Great  Britain. 

Two  per  cent  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  own 
sixty  per  cent  of  the  property  of  the  United  States. 
Yet  they  produced  none  of  it.  By  legislation,  by  craft 
and  cunning,  by  control  of  Congress  and  the  courts, 
they  took  to  themselves  what  others  produced.  Sixty- 
six  per  cent  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  own  five 
per  cent  of  the  property  of  the  United  States.  Yet  they 
produced  all  of  the  wealth  and  have  none  of  it.  Why 
do  not  the  producers  of  this  wealth  have  what  they  pro 
duce  ?  Because  the  making  of  the  laws  and  the  control 
of  the  courts  is  in  the  hands  of  those  who  do  not  work, 
and  this  has  been  true  from  the  beginning  of  the  Gov 
ernment.  The  convention  which  framed  the  Constitu 
tion  of  the  United  States  was  composed  of  fifty-five 
members.  A  majority  were  lawyers — not  one  farmer, 
mechanic  or  laborer.  Forty  owned  Revolutionary  Scrip. 
Fourteen  were  land  speculators.  Twenty-four  were 
money-lenders.  Eleven  were  merchants.  Fifteen  were 
slave-holders.  They  made  a  Constitution  to  protect  the 
rights  of  property  and  not  the  rights  of  man,  and,  ever 
since,  Congress  has  been  controlled  by  the  property 

407 


owner,  and  has  framed  laws  in  their  interests  and  their 
interests  only,  and  always  refused  to  frame  any  laws  in 
the  interest  of  those  who  produce  all  the  wealth  and 
have  none  of  it. 

In  the  second  place,  the  wealth-owning  class,  because 
of  its  wealth-power  and  its  hold  on  the  machinery  of 
society,  takes  a  tribute  from  the  mass  of  the  workers. 
The  character  of  this  tribute  varies  from  age  to  age- 
At  bottom  it  is  the  same.  The  owner  of  wealth,  be 
cause  he  possesses  the  things  without  which  the  masses 
would  starve,  compels  them  to  pay  him  a  return  for 
their  use.  In  Egypt  and  in  feudal  Europe,  the  masters 
owned  land  and  exacted  rent.  Here,  in  the  United 
States,  the  masters  own  the  forests,  mines,  factories, 
railroads,  banks  and  insurance  companies.  These  things 
they  own  through  the  instrumentality  of  corporations 
and  therefore  their  income  takes  the  form  of  dividends 
on  stocks  and  of  interest  on  bonds.  The  form  is  imma 
terial.  The  fact  remains  that  the  few — whether  as 
landlords  or  capitalists — hold  the  choice  spots  of  the 
earth,  and  the  many,  for  the  privilege  of  enjoying  these 
choice  spots,  pay  tribute  to  the  few  who  own  them. 

These  masses — the  workers — the  producers — are  re 
warded  with  the  least  possible  amount  upon  which  they 
are  willing  to  go  on  working  and  reproducing  their  kind. 
In  old  times  they  were  chattel  slaves;  today  they  are 
wage  slaves.  Formerly,  their  masters  took  all  of  their 
product  and  guaranteed  them  a  living.  Now,  a  part  of 
the  product  goes  to  the  workers,  but  they  must  keep 
themselves. 

In  the  past  the  work  done  by  the  slave  for  his  mas 
ter  kept  the  master  in  luxury  and  enabled  him  to  live 
a  life  of  ease,  and,  if  he  desired,  of  dissipation  and 
waste.  Today  the  rent,  interest  and  dividends  paid  by 
the  workers  to  the  owners  of  lands,  bonds  and  stocks 
enables  these  owners  to  live  in  luxury,  in  idleness  and, 
if  they  desire,  in  wasteful  dissipation.  The  owners  of 
American  wealth,  according  to  the  returns  published 
by  the  Internal  Revenue  office,  state  on  their  income 

408 


tax  blanks  that  their  incomes  amount  to  tens  and  hun 
dreds  of  thousands,  to  millions  and  tens  of  millions  of 
dollars  each  year.  The  most  skilled  of  the  workers 
seldom  make  over  $100  a  week  with  steady  work,  and 
seven-eighths  of  them  make  less  than  $50  a  week. 

Furthermore,  when  hard  times  come,  it  is  the  worker 
who  goes  on  the  street  and  starves.  The  bondholder 
continues  to  draw  his  interest  and  the  stockholder  con 
tinues  to  receive  his  dividend.  The  bondholder,  under 
the  law,  can  insist  upon  his  interest.  The  corporations 
take  care  of  the  stockholder  long  after  the  workers 
have  begun  to  walk  the  streets  looking  for  a  chance 
to  work. 

These  owners,  freed  from  the  necessity  for  labor, 
develop  rapidly  into  a  leisure  class,  while  the  workers, 
struggling  for  existence,  constitute  a  labor  class.  The 
leisure  class  controls  the  surplus  wealth  of  the  com 
munity.  Out  of  this  surplus  it  feeds,  dresses  and  houses 
itself;  buys  privileges,  corrupts  the  machinery  of  the 
state;  invests  in  foreign  exploiting  opportunities; 
struggles  with  the  leisure  classes  of  other  countries 
for  the  chance  to  exploit  and  rob. 

Among  the  masses,  who  are  laboring  and  producing 
without  getting  the  value  of  their  product,  there  is 
poverty  and  want.  Diseases  waste  and  ravage ;  vitality 
is  sapped;  energy  deteriorates.  Perhaps  nowhere  in 
the  modern  world  is  the  picture  more  clearly  presented 
than  among  the  exploited  British  factory  workers  dur 
ing  the  forty  or  fifty  years  preceding  the  World  War. 
If  the  soldiers  on  the  field  were  common  fodder,  the 
men  and  women  of  Lancashire  and  Birmingham  were 
factory  fodder.  While  the  leisure  class  of  Britain  was 
shooting  grouse  and  chasing  foxes  across  the  ploughed 
land,  the  men  and  women  and  children  belonging  to  the 
working  masses  were  huddled  in  garrets  and  cellars — 
the  prey  of  tuberculosis,  rickets,  anemia  and  want. 

The  leisure  class,  having  nothing  better  to  do,  plays 
at  ducks  and  drakes  with  international  affairs,  plunges 
the  country  into  economic  and  military  conflicts,  heaps 

409 


up  great  debts,  and  wastes  its  own  and  the  country's 
resources,  while  the  workers  do  the  mass-fighting,  pay 
the  taxes  and  suffer  from  starvation  and  disease.  Be 
tween  the  two  classes  there  springs  up  hate,  class 
conflict  and  perpetual  dissension.  It  was  not  for  noth 
ing  that  Alexander  Hamilton  wrote,  "The  various  and 
unequal  distribution  of  wealth." 

When  I  entered  the  public  life  of  the  United  States, 
the  economic  ruling  class  was  just  stepping  into  power. 
There  was  no  leisure  class  to  speak  of.  There  was  still 
an  abundance  of  free  land  for  the  workers.  The  Amer 
ica  that  I  knew  in  my  young  manhood  was  still  talking, 
in  all  sincerity,  about  "government  of,  by  and  for  the 
people."  In  the  brief  period  of  my  own  public  experi 
ence  we  have  adopted  a  species  of  feudalism  more 
unhuman  and  more  vicious  than  any  of  which  history 
bears  a  record — a  feudalism  of  artificial  persons  (cor 
porations)  using  their  power  to  exploit  the  workers  in 
the  interest  of  the  parasites.  Within  my  lifetime  we 
have  become  a  government  of  corporations  whose  at 
torneys  are  in  the  House  and  Senate  and  throughout 
the  bureaus  and  departments  of  the  Government,  look 
ing  out  for  the  interests  of  those  who  pay  them  their 
retaining  fees. 

This  is  capitalism — the  control  of  the  machinery  of 
society  in  the  interests  of  those  who  own  its  wealth. 
This  was  feudalism  in  France  and  slavery  in  Rome  and 
in  Assyria.  This  is  the  system  of  dividing  the  commu 
nity  into  two  classes — owners  and  producers — and  of 
rewaiding  the  owners  at  the  expense  of  the  producers. 
As  I  read  history,  this  method  of  social  organization 
has  had  and  can  have  only  one  result.  The  leisure 
class  rots  out  and  drops  to  pieces;  the  workers  starve 
and  suffer  and  die.  Sometimes  they  revolt — particu 
larly  in  the  later  years.  Generally,  they  are  too  weak 
and  too  ignorant  to  do  anything  more  than  labor  and 
reproduce. 

In  the  preceding  pages  I  have  tried  to  show  how  this 
system  was  getting  its  grip  on  the  United  States.  Out 

410 


of  my  own  experience  in  public  life  I  have  indicated  the 
activity  of  the  land-grabbers,  the  bankers,  the  money- 
ring,  the  beneficiaries  of  the  tariff,  the  trust  magnates, 
the  railroad  operators  and  the  other  masters  of  the 
economic  world.  In  Congress  and  out,  year  by  year, 
they  have  taken  possession  of  the  country's  best  re 
sources,  robbed  the  people  through  monopoly,  ex 
ploited  and  plundered  the  workers  by  means  of  low 
wages  and  high  prices.  Then,  with  their  ill-gotten 
gains,  they  have  invaded  other  lands — Cuba,  Porto 
Rico,  the  Philippines,  Mexico,  Panama,  Costa  Rica, 
Nicaragua  and  Haiti — and  there  they  have  repeated  the 
same  process,  by  fair  means  or  foul,  gaining  possession 
of  the  timber,  oil,  copper  and  iron,  and  then  forcing 
the  natives  to  produce  these  commodities  for  a  pittance 
wage.  Behind  them,  in  these  ventures,  the  plutocrats 
had  the  army  and  navy  of  the  United  States  to  be  used 
when  necessary,  as  they  were  used  against  Spain,  the 
Philippines,  the  Mexicans,  the  Haitians  and  the  rest. 
Meanwhile,  at  home,  through  the  subsidy  of  political 
parties — through  the  passage  of  legislation — through 
the  courts — through  the  private  control  or,  where 
necessary,  through  the  open  purchase  of  coercion  of 
public  men,  the  interests  have  taken  possession  of  the 
government  of  the  United  States,  shaping  its  institu 
tions,  and  directing  its  policies  along  lines  calculated  to 
yield  the  largest  net  returns  to  the  plutocracy. 

The  last  move  in  this  direction  involved  the  entrance 
of  the  United  States  into  the  World  War ;  the  conscrip 
tion  of  men ;  the  dispatch  of  an  army  to  the  battlefields 
of  Europe;  the  suppression  of  free  speech  and  a  free 
press;  search,  seizure,  indictment,  trial,  imprisonment 
and  the  deportation  of  men  and  women  in  open  and 
flagrant  violation  of  constitutional  guarantees  and  long- 
established  precedent. 

The  Wilson  administration  and  the  Supreme  Court 
have  demonstrated  and  established  that  in  time  of  war 
the  Constitution,  with  all  its  amendments,  is  but  a 
scrap  of  paper  and  of  no  force  and  effect.  Hereafter, 

411 


all  that  the  people  who  do  the  work  and  produce  the 
wealth  have  to  do  it  to  unite  and  get  control  of  the 
Congress  and  other  branches  of  the  government  and 
declare  war  on  some  country — any  country — and  at 
once  proceed  to  enact  laws  in  total  disregard  of  the 
Constitution,  and  all  its  guarantees,  and  arrest  and 
imprison  all  who  disagree  or  protest.  It  is  well  for 
the  people  who  toil  to  make  a  note  of  this  fact. 

No  man  who  has  regard  for  the  welfare  of  this 
country,  or  who  is  concerned  for  its  future,  can  fail  to 
be  alarmed  at  the  course  that  it  has  followed,  and  is 
still  following,  along  the  road  that  leads  to  empire  and 
imperial  institutions.  There  may  yet  be  time,  but  un 
less  we  turn  back  soon,  it  will  be  too  late.  It  behooves 
the  sixty-six  per  cent  of  our  people  to  take  possession 
of  their  Government  and  enact  laws  so  that  every  man 
shall  have  all  he  produces.  Capital  is  stolen  labor,  and 
its  only  function  is  to  steal  more  labor. 


412 


XXXIII.     THE  TRIUMPH  OF  CHRISTIAN  CIVILIZATION 

Perhaps  I  can  say  more  effectively  what  I  tried  to 
write  in  the  last  chapter  by  means  of  an  allegory  which 
tells,  in  simple  form,  the  story  of  our  blunders. 

One  hundred  years  ago  a  colony  of  English  farm 
laborers,  one  hundred  in  number,  composed  of  men, 
women  and  children — old  and  young — chartered  a 
ship  and  started  for  Australia.  They  were  inspired  to 
go  by  the  promise  of  free  land — they  and  their  an 
cestors  having  been  tenants  upon  an  English  estate. 

The  ship  was  a  sailing  ship  and  the  colonists  loaded 
it  with  their  second-hand  furniture,  second-hand  bed 
ding  and  second-hand  farm  implements.  They  also 
obtained  some  seeds  from  a  charitable  person  who 
was  willing  to  await  the  success  of  the  colony  for  the 
return  of  his  investment ;  and,  with  the  seeds  and  agri 
cultural  implements,  they  started  from  England  for 
Australia  by  way  of  Cape  Horn.  The  voyage  across 
the  Atlantic  was  successfully  made;  the  cape  was 
rounded  and  the  ship  stretched  her  sails  as  she  moved 
away  into  the  broad  Pacific.  The  colonist,  who  knew 
little  of  sailing  routes  soon  got  off  from  the  ordinary 
track  of  vessels  and,  when  well  out  in  the  Pacific  Ocean, 
ran  their  ship  aground  upon  a  sunken  reef  which  stove 
a  hole  in  the  bottom  and  placed  it  beyond  repair. 

Consternation  prevailed  among  the  passengers. 
Some  fainted.  Others  ran  up  and  down  the  decks, 
nearly  insane  from  fear.  The  cooler  heads  soon  re 
stored  order  however,  and  all  hands  were  organized 
to  save  what  they  could  out  of  the  wreck.  When  it 
became  evident  that  the  ship  was  in  no  immediate  dan 
ger  of  sinking,  the  faint-hearted  regained  courage  and 
all  went  to  work  with  a  will. 

There  were  two  young  men — healthy  and  strong — 
who  seemed  to  take  no  interest  in  the  salvage  plans, 
but  busied  themselves  with  trying  to  release  from  its 
lashings  the  only  life-boat  upon  the  ship — a  very  small 
boat,  which  was  all  that  the  colonists,  out  of  their 
meagre  funds,  could  afford. 

413 


A  study  of  the  situation  showed  the  leaders  of  the 
party  that  their  condition  was  by  no  means  hopeless. 
The  ship  did  not  fill  rapidly  and  about  ten  miles  south 
of  the  wreck,  land  could  be  made  out.  There  was  no 
wind,  the  sea  was  calm.  Their  one  boat  was  too  small 
to  be  of  any  great  use,  so  the  voyagers  decided  to  builc 
a  raft  out  of  the  ship  and  try  to  reach  the  land  south 
of  them.  So  they  all  started  to  work — with  the  excep 
tion  of  the  two  young  men — constructed  their  raft  on 
the  leeward  side  of  the  ship  and  began  loading  it  with 
their  belongings.  Before  they  had  gone  far  with  the 
loading,  they  found  that  the  raft  would  not  carry  over 
one-half  of  the  colony.  So  they  took  the  old  and  the 
helpless  and  the  children,  and  half  of  the  most  able- 
bodied,  and  proceeded  to  propel  the  raft  to  the  land, 
while  the  others  were  picking  up  and  putting  in  shape 
the  remainder  of  the  cargo  and  the  stores. 

The  occupants  of  the  raft  landed  upon  the  island 
without  difficulty.  Apparently,  so  far  as  they  could  see, 
it  was  a  complete  and  absolute  desert.  They  had  no 
ticed,  before  they  left  the  ship,  that  the  two  young  men, 
who  had  been  hanging  around  the  life-boat  had  dis 
appeared,  and  that  the  life-boat,  as  well  as  all  the  arms 
and  munitions  on  the  ship  had  disappeared  with  them. 
These  men  had  rendered  no  assistance  whatever  in  res 
cuing  their  fellow-beings  from  the  wreck,  and  they  had 
deserted  the  ship  at  the  critical  moment,  with  the  only 
seaworthy  craft  that  the  colonists  possessed. 

After  the  first  raft  cargo  had  been  landed,  a  few 
of  the  men  returned  with  the  raft  to  the  ship,  loaded 
their  implements  and  the  remainder  of  the  food  and 
taking  aboard  the  rest  of  the  colony,  returned  to  the 
island. 

For  the  next  day  or  two,  the  shipwrecked  colonists 
gave  their  attention  to  stripping  the  ship  taking  such 
parts  as  they  could  detach,  to  the  island,  and  construct 
ing  temporary  shelter.  After  all  that  could  be  moved 
was  taken  to  the  camping  place  they  had  selected,  three 
of  the  company  were  chosen  to  explore  the  island, 

414 


while  others  were  detailed  to  manufacture  a  temporary 
boat  in  order  to  see  if  there  were  eatable  fish  in  the 
waters  surrounding  the  island. 

Those  who  had  been  sent  to  explore  the  island  soon 
returned  with  the  report  that  they  had  found  a  body 
of  very  fertile  land  several  miles  in  the  interior  of 
the  island,  that  this  land  was  about  three  thousand 
acres  in  extent ;  that  there  was  a  large  spring  of  water 
in  the  centre  of  it,  and  that  it  appeared  to  be  the  only 
cultivatable  land  upon  the  whole  island.  They  reported 
further  that  the  two  young  men,  who  had  abandoned 
their  fellows  were  there  in  possession  of  the  fertile 
land,  and  that  when  the  committee  proposed  to  bring 
all  the  other  people  up  to  the  spring  of  fresh  water 
and  the  fertile  land,  the  two  young  men  replied  that 
they,  having  discovered  the  oasis,  were  the  lawful 
owners  and  they  proposed  to  stand  upon  their  right  to 
retain  it.  When  the  committee  insisted  that  the  land 
should  not  be  privately  owned  but  should  be  the  com 
mon  property  of  all — as  man  was  a  land  animal  and 
fertile  soil  was  absolutely  essential  to  his  existence — 
the  two  young  men  who  had  in  their  possession  all  of 
the  arms  on  the  ship,  first  argued  that  the  committee 
must  not  undertake  to  discourage  individual  initiative 
— that  it  would  be  ruinous  to  civilization  not  to  en 
courage  individual  enterprise  and  that  the  land  be 
longed  to  them  by  right  of  discovery.  But,  when  the 
committee  pressed  the  point  and  urged  the  rights  of 
man,  the  two  young  men  said :  "We  have  all  the  arms 
and  ammunition  that  are  on  this  island,  and  if  you 
undertake  to  force  possession  of  this  land,  we  shall  fire 
upon  you." 

After  hearing  the  report  of  their  Committee,  the 
colonists  held  a  meeting  and  decided  that  it  would  be 
a  great  mistake  to  discourage  individual  enterprise  or 
in  any  way  throttle  individual  ambition.  They  and 
their  ancestors  had  always  paid  rent  to  a  landlord ;  they 
had  been  taught  to  believe  that  it  was  the  rights  of 
property  that  were  sacred  and  not  the  rights  of  man, 

415 


and  so  they  resolved  to  move  on  to  the  three  thousand 
fertile  acres  and  pay  rent  for  the  use  of  them.  So  they 
gathered  together  the  old  and  the  helpless  and  the  littk 
children  and  moved  them  first,  and  then  they  moved 
all  of  their  belongings,  including  their  supply  of  food 
and  seed  and  implements,  without  any  help  whatever 
from  the  two  young  men  who  were  busily  guarding 
the  results  of  their  enterprise. 

The  Colonists  set  to  work  at  once  to  cultivate  the 
land  and  put  in  a  crop.  The  two  young  men  married 
the  two  most  likely  young  women  on  the  island,  and 
the  two  young  women  and  their  relatives  esteemed  it  a 
great  catch. 

After  the  first  crop  was  harvested,  the  young  men, 
by  promising  a  little  reduction  in  rent,  put  the  whole 
laboring  population  at  work  building  them  a  house  that 
corresponded  with  the  importance  of  their  position. 
The  workers  hewed,  with  their  rough  tools,  the  coral 
rock  out  of  the  barren  portions  of  the  island  and  con 
structed  a  very  splendid  residence  for  the  ruling  classes. 
After  the  house  was  finished  and  the  workers  had 
manufactured  as  best  they  could,  out  of  the  wood  ob 
tained  from  the  ship,  furniture  with  which  to  stock 
it,  they  began  to  construct  hovels  of  stone  and  earth 
for  themselves  and  their  children,  and  their  aged  and 
their  sick. 

So  matters  went  on  for  several  years,  during  which 
about  two  thousand  acres  of  the  fertile  land  were 
brought  under  cultivation.  Meanwhile,  the  population 
had  increased  and  their  labor  had  made  a  beautiful 
park  out  of  the  remaining  thousand  acres  which  sur 
rounded  the  residence  of  their  lords.  They  had  also 
built  a  heavy  wall  around  the  thousand  acres  so  as  to 
protect  the  park  from  encroachment. 

The  leaders  of  the  colony  still  dreamed  of  resuming 
their  journey  to  Australia,  and  in  the  little  spare  time 
they  had  between  planting,  harvesting  and  building, 
they  explored  the  island.  On  the  end  farthest  removed 
from  the  oasis,  they  found  a  deep  and  rugged  ravine, 

416 


containing  some  scrubby  vegetation,  and  coming  down 
from  a  considerable  elevation  that  suggested  volcanic 
origin.  In  the  ravine  they  discovered  gold  in  great 
quantities  and  immediately  began  to  extract  it  from 
the  soil.  It  was  placer  gold  and  came  out  in  big  and 
small  nuggets. 

After  gold  was  discovered,  the  oldest  of  the  two 
colonists,  who  had  appropriated  all  of  the  fertile  land 
upon  the  island,  took  the  title  of  Lord  Gpldfield,  and 
the  whole  population  turned  out  for  a  holiday  to  cele 
brate  the  event.  They  attended  services  in  their 
churches  and  were  told  by  their  spiritual  advisers  that 
it  was  a  great  providence  of  God's  which  had  bestowed 
upon  them  so  kind  and  beneficent  a  ruler  as  the  lord 
of  the  province;  that,  in  fact,  their  lord  had  received 
his  title  direct  from  God ;  that  it  was  of  divine  origin 
and  was  sent  especially  to  them  by  the  great  Ruler  of 
the  universe  because  of  his  loving  care. 

In  addition  to  the  gold,  some  of  the  colonists  dis 
covered  at  the  headwaters  of  the  stream  upon  the 
banks  of  which  the  gold  was  found,  a  small  band  of 
wild  goats.  The  goats  were  very  thin  and  their  hair 
was  not  of  the  finest  quality;  but  immediately  upon 
the  discovery  of  the  goats  the  lords  of  the  palace  had 
them  removed  to  the  one  thousand  acres  which  they 
had  walled  in  as  a  park  around  their  mansion,  and 
great  care  was  exercised  in  their  breeding  so  that  only 
the  best  qualities  were  reproduced.  These  efforts  met 
with  great  success.  The  inferior  goats  were  sterilized 
and  only  those  allowed  to  reproduce  who  were  of  the 
very  best  quality.  The  animals  became  strong  and 
large  and  covered  with  a  wooly  coat,  and  were  thus 
suitable  for  beasts  of  burden,  and  to  furnish  wool  for 
cloth,  and  milk  for  the  children  of  the  rich. 

As  a  result  of  this  achievement,  the  other  young  man 
took  a  title — the  title  of  Lord  Angora,  in  honor  of  the 
discovery  of  the  goats.  And  again  ceremonies  were 
held  and  a  holiday  proclaimed  and  the  population  in 
structed  in  the  divine  origin  of  this  title. 

417 


But  while  birth  control  was  exercised  with  regard 
to  the  goats,  and  great  care  taken  to  see  that  they  were 
properly  fed.  the  common  people  of  the  colony  were 
taught  that  it  was  wicked  to  interfere  with  the  proc 
esses  of  nature,  and  as  the  population  had  brought  with 
them  the  usual  diseases  common  to  the  sexes  in  Great 
Britain,  there  were  increasing  numbers  constantly 
among  the  inhabitants  of  those  who  were  diseased  and 
of  those  who  were  mentally  defective;  in  fact,  a  very 
large  number  of  dependents  had  grown  up  and  the 
slums  had  appeared,  and  as  they  took  no  care  with 
regard  to  sanitary  affairs,  epidemic  diseases — the  re 
sult  of  the  poisoning  of  the  population  by  their  own 
filth — spread  among  them  and  reduced  the  population 
from  time  to  time.  And  the  people  were  taught  that 
this  was  a  visitation  by  Providence  to  punish  them  for 
their  failure  to  appreciate  the  glory  and  goodness  of 
God;  that  they  should  read  the  Bible  every  day  and 
observe  Sunday  and  attend  Church  and  above  all,  con 
tribute  to  the  support  of  the  Church  and  God's  repre 
sentative — the  preacher,  who  had  ordered  a  day  of 
fasting  and  prayer  to  appease  the  anger  of  the  Deity, 
And  the  preacher  chanted — "God  is  great  and  God  is 
good;  He  provideth  our  daily  food;  by  His  hand  we 
are  all  fed;  give  us  now  our  daily  bread."  And  the 
people  cried  "Halleluliah,  Glory  to  God."  But  God's 
wrath  was  so  great  that  He  would  not  hear,  and  the 
epidemic  ran  its  full  course.  The  preacher  then  told 
the  people  that  the  only  way  to  prevent  future  epi 
demics  was  to  be  more  devout  and  that  God,  above  all 
things,  loved  a  cheerful  giver. 

The  rulers  of  the  island  had  planned  and  directed 
the  construction  of  large  warehouses  which  were  used 
to  store  the  products  of  the  land.  Many  colonists  were 
improvident.  They  would  sell  off  what  they  produced 
and  use  up  the  returns  so  that  they  would  not  have 
enough  to  last  them  until  the  next  crop.  As  the  popu 
lation  grew  and  life  became  less  bearable  the  number 
of  the  improvident  increased.  The  two  thousand 

418 


acres  under  cultivation  yielded  three  crops  a  year ;  was 
intensely  cultivated  and  produced  an  abundance  of 
supplies.  The  ruling  classes,  who  owned  the  gold 
mines  as  well  as  the  fertile  land,  knowing  that  the 
value  of  money  depended  upon  its  quantity,  decided 
that  the  nuggets  of  gold  should  have  a  value  in  propor 
tion  to  their  weight  or  size,  and,  of  course,  they  decreed 
that  the  unit  should  be  pounds,  shillings  and  pence. 
They  also  manipulated  the  money  so  that,  when  the 
crop  was  harvested,  the  money  was  very  scarce  and 
therefore,  the  prices  were  very  low.  They  would  buy 
the  products  of  the  land  and  store  them  in  their  ware 
houses  and,  when  the  next  crop  was  fairly  in  the  ground 
and  improvident  members  of  the  community  were  en 
tirely  out  of  food,  they  would  make  the  volume  of 
money  exceedingly  abundant,  prices  would  rise  and  they 
could  thus  charge  several  times  what  they  paid  for 
the  products  of  the  laborer  of  the  land.  They  soon 
found  that  this  was  unnecessary  for,  as  they  were  the 
only  owners  of  money  and  had  the  only  warehouses 
that  there  were,  they  could  arbitrarily  fix  the  price 
and  thus  exploit  the  population  to  the  full  extent  of 
their  desire,  through  their  trust  control. 

But  a  new  problem  had  arisen.  Malthus's  theory 
that  population  would  outrun  subsistence  had  come 
true.  The  two  thousand  acres  would  no  longer  pro 
duce  food  enough  to  supply  the  population  and  the 
serfs  began  to  wonder  how  they  would  overcome  the 
difficulty.  They  never  thought  of  encroaching  upon 
the  park  because  that  was  private  property  belonging 
to  God  and  the  descendants  of  the  two  young  men  who 
had,  by  their  private  enterprise,  discovered  and  taken 
possession  of  it;  and  the  descendants  of  these  young 
men  never,  for  a  moment,  thought  of  plowing  up  the 
park,  and  they  insisted  that  the  miserable  population 
would  have  enough  if  they  would  exercise  frugality  and 
industry  and  would  educate  themselves ;  but  they  were 
ignorant  and  many  of  them  were  idle  and  of  but  little 
consequence. 

419 


So  a  committee  was  appointed  to  explore  the  neigh 
boring  seas  with  the  hope  of  finding  land.  The  ex 
pedition  discovered  some  small  islands,  almost  entirely 
barren.  On  one  of  them,  however,  they  found  a  human 
being,  clothed  in  palm  leaves,  who  fled  upon  their  ap 
proach;  but  they  called  to  him  and  to  their  astonish 
ment  and  joy  he  responded  in  the  English  tongue.  He 
had  been  upon  the  island  for  ten  years,  the  only  sur 
vivor  of  a  shipwreck  and  had  subsisted  upon  roots, 
scant  vegetation,  and  the  products  of  the  sea,  clothing 
himself  with  palm  leaves. 

Of  course  he  went  home  with  the  colonists  and  after 
he  had  fully  recovered,  began  to  preach  the  doctrine 
of  Socialism.  He  said  the  rights  of  man  were  sacred 
and  not  the  rights  of  property.  He  said  that  every 
man  should  have  all  that  his  labor  produces — that  man 
was  a  land  animal  and  that  the  land  was  essential  to 
his  very  existence,  and  that  no  person  should  own  more 
land  than  he  could  use  and  that,  for  the  idle  to  demand 
rent  for  the  use  of  the  land — the  common  inheritance 
of  all  —  was  immoral  and  dishonest,  and  that  they 
should  immediately  take  possession  of  the  thousand 
acres  in  the  park  and  put  those  acres  into  crops.  And 
many  of  the  people  endorsed  his  views. 

But  the  ruling  classes  were  not  idle.  They  had 
watched  his  movements ;  they  sent  their  paid  retainers, 
their  lawyers,  among  the  people  and  argued  that  to 
take  the  park  and  not  pay  for  it  would  be  confiscation 
and  robbery;  that  the  present  owner  had  inherited  it 
from  ancestors  who  had  acquired  it  by  thrift  and  in 
dustry  and  enterprise.  That  if  the  public  appropriated 
it  to  the  good  of  all  it  would  destroy  all  incentive  to 
individual  enterprise  and  stop  the  wheels  of  progress 
and  discourage  ambition  and  return  the  world  to  bar 
barism  ;  and  they  also  wanted  to  know  if  they  proposecj 
to  rob  widows  and  orphans. 

The  ruler  had  also  organized  a  standing  army  of 
trained  men  under  the  plea  that  the  colony  might  be 
invaded  by  savages  from  some  unknown  island  in  the 

420 


sea,  and  that  an  army  was  needed  for  protection.  The 
army  was  officered  by  men  who  had  been  brought  up 
from  childhood  as  trained  soldiers  and  taught  that  they 
must  obey  their  superior  officers  even  unto  shooting 
their  own  brothers  and  sisters,  if  commanded  to  do 
so  by  the  officer  over  them.  And,  as  the  commander- 
in-chief  of  their  standing  army  was  by  law  the  oldest 
son  of  the  oldest  of  the  two  men  who  had  discovered 
the  fertile  land,  the  army  was  ordered  out,  and  they 
captured  the  socialist  in  the  interest  of  law  and  order, 
and  stood  him  up  against  the  wall  which  surrounded  the 
one  thousand  acres,  and  fired  a  volley  into  him  and 
threw  his  body  into  the  moat. 

Civil  war  at  once  commenced ;  the  population  divided 
almost  equally  on  the  great  question  of  the  sacred 
rights  of  property,  and  they  began  killing  each  other 
until  half  of  the  people  were  disposed  of.  But  as  the 
trained  men  with  their  guns  were  on  the  side  of  the 
owner  of  the  property,  the  people  that  remained  alive 
stopped  the  unequal  contest,  and  right  and  might  pre 
vailed;  law  and  order  triumphed;  the  congestion  was 
relieved ;  the  park  was  saved ;  the  people  agreed  to  con 
tinue  to  pay  rent,  and  Christian  civilization  pursued 
its  peaceful  and  solemn  course. 


421 


XXXIV.     LOOKING  AHEAD 

1  have  had  a  long  experience  with  the  public  life  of 
the  United  States;  I  have  been  repeatedly  to  Europe; 
I  have  studied  the  life  of  the  East  at  first  hand ;  I  have 
read  economics,  history,  sociology;  I  have  been  busily 
engaged  in  the  life  of  the  world  for  more  than  half 
of  a  century.  If  long  experience  and  investigation, 
coupled  with  study  and  discussion,  fit  a  man  to  under 
stand  what  is  going  on  about  him,  then  I  believe  that 
I  have  the  necessary  qualifications  for  passing  on  the 
events  that  are  now  transpiring,  and  for  predicting  the 
trend  of  our  economic  and  political  life. 

There  are  certain  things  that  I  see  very  clearly ;  and 
certain  tendencies  that  are  working  toward  their  logi 
cal  goals  just  as  inexorably  as  the  sun  passes  across 
the  heavens.  These  tendencies  in  our  public  life  are 
similar  to,  though  not  identical  with,  similar  forces 
that  have  operated  in  other  societies  during  historic 
times;  and  they  bear  a  very  close  resemblance  to  the 
forces  that  are  now  at  work  in  all  of  the  great  cap 
italist  countries  of  the  world. 

In  the  fight  over  the  annexation  of  Hawaii,  I  pre 
dicted  that  the  road  which  was  then  being  followed  by 
the  United  States  would  lead  speedily  to  empire.  Well, 
the  empire  is  already  here — having  arrived  more  speed 
ily  than  I,  in  my  wildest  imaginings,  ever  dreamed  that 
it  would  arrive. 

At  the  time  of  the  struggle  over  the  Hawaiian 
Treaty,  few  people  believed  that  the  United  States 
could  ever  be  an  imperial  nation.  They  were  skeptical, 
or  else  they  scoffed  openly.  Even  the  representatives 
of  the  great  interests  had  little  idea  of  what  was  hap 
pening.  They  knew  that  they  were  serving  the  men 
who  had  retained  them,  but  with  the  exception  of  a 
very  few  among  them  they  saw  no  farther  than  the 
immediate  present.  They  were  lawyers — not  states 
men. 

As  for  the  masses  of  the  people,  they  were  as  ig- 

422 


norant  then  as  they  are  now.  They  were  swayed  by 
their  emotions.  "They  responded  to  the  "full  dinner 
pail"  appeal.  They  were  the  victims  of  an  education 
that  taught  them  to  remember — not  to  think ;  and  they 
were  so  busy  remembering  the  glories  of  seventeenth 
century  Revolutionary  America  that  they  had  no  en 
ergy  or  attention  to  devote  to  the  problems  of  nine 
teenth  century  plutocratic  and  imperial  America.  Dur 
ing  the  campaign  of  1900  I  went  before  the  farmers 
of  South  Dakota  as  a  man  who  had  served  them  for  a 
decade  in  their  fight  against  the  exploiters.  Mark 
Hanna,  the  direct  representative  of  those  exploiters, 
came  out  to  Dakota  with  half  a  million  dollars,  and  the 
half  million  carried  more  weight  than  my  eleven  years 
of  service  in  the  Senate. 

Such  experience  taught  me  that,  all  other  things 
being  equal,  people  will  do  what  their  immediate  eco 
nomic  advantage  prompts  them  to  do.  Against  the 
weight  of  this  economic  advantage,  ideals  and  abstract 
ideas  will  not  win  with  the  average  man  or  woman. 

Therefore,  I  reached  a  conclusion  that  I  have  since 
seen  verified  again  and  again — that  where  the  carcass 
is  the  vultures  will  be  gathered  together.  So  long  as 
the  privileged  few  hold  the  reins  of  economic  power, 
and  so  long  as  they  are  willing  to  share  up  with  the 
workers  a  portion — even  a  small  portion  of  the  plunder 
— they  can  hope  to  maintain  their  authority. 

So  I  realized  that  progress  was  to  be  made  from  the 
tyranny  of  the  masters  as  well  as  from  the  spirit  of 
revolt  among  the  workers,  and  where  the  workers  had 
been  crushed  and  exploited  for  generations,  as  in  Eng 
land,  I  realized  that  it  would  take  a  great  deal  of 
tyranny  before  the  masses  could  be  expected  to  revolt. 

Thus,  the  danger  of  the  American  farmers  and  wage- 
earners  lay  in  their  very  prosperity  and  in  the  leniency 
of  their  masters.  So  long  as  the  bread  was  abundant 
I  did  not  see  how  it  was  possible  for  forward-looking 
people  to  expect  any  effective  progress. 

Nevertheless,  I  expected  the  present  century  to  yield 

423 


a  crop  of  revolutions,  based  on  tyranny  and  starvation, 
and  I  predicted  such  a  result  in  1900.  I  made  this 
prediction  in  reply  to  a  letter  from  the  Red  Cross,  in 
which  the  Director  of  the  20th  Century  Department 
asked  me  to  tell  what  the  world  might  expect  in  the 
new  century.  The  Red  Cross  request  was  as  follows : 

"THE  AMERICAN  NATIONAL  RED  CROSS 

20th  Century  Department 

Walter  L.  Phillips 

General  Secretary,  Bridgeport,  Conn. 
"Miss  Clara  Barton,  President, 
Miss  Ellen  Spencer  Mussey, 

Counsel  and  3rd  Vice-President, 
Washington,  D.  C. 

Frank  D.  Higbee, 
Director  20th  Century  Dept., 

New  York 

New  York,  Nov.  21,  1900. 
"Hon.  Richard  F.  Pettigrew, 

Sioux  Fall,  South  Dakota. 
"Sir: 

''The  Red  Cross  regards  your  position  and 
standing  to  be  such  as  to  make  your  views  on 
the  progress  and  value  of  the  19th  Century,  in 
comparison  with  other  centuries  and  your 
prophecies  regarding  the  20th  Century  of 
great  value,  and  we  respectfully  request  you 
to  forward  to  us  at  your  earliest  convenience 
from  40  to  70  words  in  your  own  handwriting 
giving  your  thoughts  in  that  connection.  We 
shall  read  them  at  all  of  our  meetings  through 
out  the  United  States,  and  afterwards  allow 
the  United  States  Government  to  take  them 
and  forever  exhibit  and  preserve  them  in  the 
Congressional  Library  at  Washington. 

424 


"An  engraved  invitation  is  being  prepared, 
one  of  which  will  be  mailed  to  you,  but  the 
time  is  short,  and  we  take  this  method  to  ex 
pedite  matters,  and  hope  you  will  send  in  your 
"Greeting"  before  December  1st,  if  you  can 
do  so. 

"We  prefer  to  have  the  'Greeting'  in  your 
own  handwriting  rather  than  typewritten  be 
cause  we  wish  to  have  each  'Greeting'  in  auto 
graph  form  when  turned  over  to  the  govern 
ment  for  preservation  for  all  time. 

"Thanking  you  in  advance,  I  am, 

"Very  truly  yours, 

"FRANK  D.  HIGBEE, 

Director  20th  Century  Watch  Meetings. 

"Approved   : 

"CLARA  BARTON,  President." 
To  this  letter  I  sent  the  following  reply : 

"To  the  American  National  Red  Cross : 

"During  the  century  just  closed,  mankind 
has  made  marvelous  progress  in  his  control 
over  the  forces  of  Nature,  and  in  the  produc 
tion  of  things  which  contribute  to  his  physical 
comfort. 

"The  early  years  of  the  century  marked 
the  progress  of  the  race  towards  individual 
freedom  and  permanent  victory  over  the  tyr 
anny  of  hereditary  aristocracy,  but  the  clos 
ing  decades  of  the  century  have  witnessed  the 
surrender  of  all  that  was  gained  to  the  more 
heartless  tyranny  of  accumulated  wealth. 
Man's  progress  has  therefore  been  material 
and  not  spiritual  or  ideal  and  the  future  alone 
can  demonstrate  whether  any  real  progress 
has  been  made. 

"I  believe  the  new  century  will  open  with 
many  bloody  revolutions  as  a  result  of  the  pro- 

425 


test  of  the  masses  against  the  tyranny  and  op 
pression  of  the  wealth  of  the  world  in  the 
hands  of  a  few,  resulting  in  great  progress  to 
wards  socialism  and  the  more  equal  distribu 
tion  of  the  products  of  human  toil  and,  as  a 
result,  the  moral  and  spitirual  uplifting  of  the 
race. 

"R.  F.  PETTIGREW. 
"Washington,  D.  C., 

Nov.  22,  1900." 

It  was  twenty  years  ago  that  I  predicted  "many 
bloody  revolutions  as  a  result  of  the  protest  of  the 
masses  against  the  tyranny  and  oppression  of  the 
world  in  the  hands  of  the  few."  These  revolutions 
have  occurred — the  first  in  Russia  1905),  and  subse 
quently  the  revolutions  in  Russia,  Hungary,  Germany 
and  other  portions  of  Central  Europe. 

Then,  too,  there  has  occurred  the  "great  progress 
towards  socialism  and  the  more  equal  distribution  of 
the  products  of  human  toil"  that  I  predicted  at  the 
same  time.  The  progress  has  been  unequal.  In  the 
United  States  and  in  Japan,  it  has  only  just  begun. 
All  over  Europe  it  has  reached  advanced  stages,  and 
the  same  forces  of  tyrannous  capitalism  and  imperial 
ism  that  have  been  at  work  in  Europe,  making  for 
these  revolutions,  and  for  this  revision  of  the  ways  of 
handling  economic  life  are  now  busy  in  the  United 
States,  where  the  ruling  class  is  following  the  old 
course  of  empire,  and  where  the  workers  are  beginning 
to  wake  up  to  the  fact  that  they  must  take  charge  of 
their  own  economic  affairs  or  perish,  as  have  their 
European  comrades,  in  the  inevitable  struggle  between 
contending  empires. 

We  have  not  yet  witnessed  "the  moral  and  spiritual 
uplifting  of  the  race,"  about  which  I  wrote  in  1900, 
but  already  there  are  intimations  that  progress  is  be 
ing  made  in  that  direction.  A  spirit  has  come  out  of 
Russia  that  has  transformed  the  thinking  of  the  world 
in  three  short  years,  and  the  end  is  not  yet.  This  spirit 

426 


is  permeating  the  masses  everywhere,  and  inspiring 
the  most  thoughtful  among  them  with  the  ideas  and 
ideals  of  a  free  economic  society. 

The  closing  years  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  saw 
the  imperialists  of  the  world  at  the  zenith  of  their 
power.  The  World  War  marked  the  beginning  of  their 
downfall. 

Today  I  see  the  workers  of  the  world  coming  into 
their  own.  Before  this  present  generation  passes,  the 
workers  in  all  of  the  important  industrial  countries  of 
Europe  will  be  the  masters  of  the  jobs  on  which  they 
are  dependent  for  a  livelihood. 

The  workers  will  gain  this  control  only  through  the 
course  of  a  struggle  during  which  western  civilization 
will  either  pass  to  a  new  level  of  industrial  and  social 
organization,  or  else  it  will  destroy  itself  in  the  conflict. 
This  is  the  supreme  test  of  the  effectiveness  of  the  pres 
ent  level  of  working-class  intelligence.  If  the  work 
ers  have  learned  enough  and  can  maintain  sufficient 
solidarity  to  hold  the  machinery  of  economic  life  to 
gether,  while  the  transition  is  being  made,  the  next 
steps  in  material  and  in  spiritual  progress  must  come 
in  quick  succession.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  workers 
fail  to  make  the  transition,  there  must  ensue  years  or 
perhaps  centuries  of  stagnation,  like  those  which  fol 
lowed  the  dissolution  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

Whatever  the  success  of  the  workers,  one  thing  is 
certain — if  those  who  do  the  world's  work  do  not  make 
this  fight  for  the  control  of  their  jobs,  the  madcaps 
who  are  now  directing  the  affairs  of  the  great  capitalist 
states  will  continue  with  their  wars — each  more  ter 
rible  than  the  last  one — until  there  remain  only  the 
fragments  of  the  present  civilization,  and  then  the 
dark  ages  that  will  follow,  across  the  war-devastated 
earth,  will  be  dark  indeed. 

If  through  either  struggle — that  of  the  workers  to 
get  and  to  hold  control  of  their  jobs,  or  that  of  the 
plutocracies  for  the  right  to  exploit  the  garden  spots 
of  the  earth — the  present  civilization  of  the  West  is 

427 


destroyed,  then  the  ancient  civilization  of  the  East, 
based  on  the  agricultural  village,  will  again  dominate 
the  earth. 

The  beginnings  of  these  changes  already  are  seen 
in  Central  Europe,  where  finances,  transportation  and 
manufacturing  have  been  seriously  deranged,  or  where 
their  operation  has  been  completely  suspended,  and 
where  starvation  and  disease  are  consuming  a  popu 
lation  for  which  the  old  order  of  society  can  afford  no 
remedy. 

The  war  has  been  officially  over  for  some  time,  yet, 
during  the  many  months  since  there  were  open  hos 
tilities  on  the  main  battle-fronts,  the  economic  life  of 
Central  Europe  has  not  recovered  its  normal  tone. 
There  were  many  who  felt  that  no  sooner  was  the 
armistice  agreed  to  than  there  would  be  a  resumption 
of  the  ordinary  economic  activities  of  the  peoples  of 
the  warring  countries.  At  least  "by  the  first  of  the 
year,"  insisted  the  optimists,  things  would  "pick  up.'; 
The  first  of  the  year  has  come  and  has  gone — for  the 
year  of  1919,  for  1920  and  for  1921,  and  unless  all 
accounts  are  at  fault  the  starvation,  disease,  suffering 
and  misery  are  more  acute  now  than  they  were  at  the 
end  of  the  war.  Certainly  the  financial  reports  show 
that  the  economic  portion  of  Austria,  Poland,  Hungary, 
Esthonia  and  probably  of  Germany  is  growing  pro 
gressively  worse.  It  is  impossible  to  turn  the  ener 
gies  of  hundreds  of  millions  from  useful  labor  to  de 
struction  for  five  years  without  breaking  down  or  wip 
ing  out  the  old  impulses  and  habits  that  lead  to  useful 
labor.  War  is  more  than  hell.  It  is  chaos,  negation 
and  denial  of  human  civilization  and  progress.  The 
worst  that  can  be  said  about  the  present  system  is  that 
it  makes  war  inevitable. 

There  is  a  crisis  in  the  life  of  nearly  four  hundred 
millions  who  make  up  Europe.  Many  of  the  people 
are  facing  a  situation  that  is  desperate  to  a  degree 
that  cannot  be  appreciated  by  those  who  have  not 
seen  it. 

428 


The  people  of  the  United  States  have  a  unique  op 
portunity  in  this  crisis.  I  do  not  speak  of  their  op 
portunity  to  give  food  and  clothing.  By  that  means 
they  may  push  off  the  anguish  of  Europe  for  a  few 
months.  I  mean  an  opportunity  to  show  how  things 
should  be  arranged  to  guarantee  the  life,  liberty  and 
happiness  of  a  people. 

The  United  States  is  isolated  geographically.  Hence 
it  is  in  a  better  position  to  experiment  and  to  work  out 
its  new  ideas  than  is  any  other  nation  of  the  world. 

Again,  nature  has  supplied  the  United  States  with 
an  unexcelled  store  of  all  the  resources  necessary  to 
the  building  and  maintenance  of  a  great  civilization. 
Hence  it  follows  that,  unlike  the  peoples  of  overcrowded 
Europe,  none  of  those  who  live  in  the  United  States 
need  lack  for  food  or  clothing  or  shelter.  The  coal 
and  iron,  the  cotton  and  the  wheat,  the  corn  and  the 
cattle,  the  beneficial  climate  and  the  generous  soil  all 
are  present  in  extraordinary  abundance. 

Besides  that,  there  are  no  near  neighbors  that  are  in 
a  position  to  interfere  with  the  internal  affairs  of  the 
country.  Once  the  American  people  have  decided  to 
reorganize  their  economic  life  on  a  basis  of  intelligence, 
there  can  be  no  effective  check  placed  upon  them  from 
the  outside. 

Finally,  the  past  few  years  have  given  this  country 
an  immense  surplus  in  machinery,  in  liquid  capital,  in 
goods  of  various  kinds  that  represent  a  great  lead 
over  any  would-be  rival. 

Such  are  the  advantages  which  the  people  of  the 
United  States  now  enjoy.  There  is  one  way  and  only 
one  way  in  which  they  can  make  good  and  utilize  them 
to  the  full.  That  is  for  the  workers  to  take  possession 
of  their  jobs,  assume  the  direction  of  economic  policy, 
and  take  the  full  product  that  they  create. 

Under  our  form  of  government  this  can  and  should 
be  accomplished,  not  by  force  but  by  political  action. 
Those  who  do  the  work  and  produce  all  the  wealth 
should  combine  and  form  a  political  party  with  a  plat- 

429 


form  of  eight  words:  "Every  man  is  entitled  to  all 
he  produces,"  with  a  slogan,  "All  power  to  the  people 
who  do  the  work  and  produce  the  wealth,"  and  take 
possession  of  the  government  in  all  its  branches,  drive 
the  lawyers  out  of  office  and  repeal  all  laws  granting 
privileges,  and  enact  laws  for  the  public  ownership 
of  all  utilities  of  every  kind  that  are  now  owned  by 
corporations. 

By  this  means,  and  by  this  means  only,  can  imperial 
ism  be  checked,  the  class  struggle  eliminated,  and  the 
life  of  the  people  be  placed  on  a  sound  and  rational 
basis.  In  this  direction  and  in  this  direction  only  can 
they  hope  to  attain  the  life,  liberty  and  happiness  of 
which  our  forefathers  dreamed. 


430 


INDEX 

Agriculture  as  a  Basis  for  National  Greatness 366 

America,    Changes    in    9 

Decay  of   Liberty  in 9 

Distributing  Wealth  in   121 

American  Conquest  of  the  Philippines     332 

Control,  Result  of,  in  Porto  Rico 359 

Federation  of  Labor,  Character  of Ill 

Federation  of  Labor,   Relations  with 109 

Government,  Criticism  of  174 

Government,  Original  Purpose  of 370 

History,  Economic  Forces  in 9 

History,   Imperialism  in    339 

Imperialism,   Development   of    348 

Imperialism  in  Central  America 344 

Imperialism  in   Nicaragua    345 

Imperialism,  Record  of   339 

Influence  on  World  Politics 335 

Labor,  Position  of   115 

People  and  the   Senate 198 

People  and  the  Trusts 67 

People,  Ignorance  of   *     5 

Politics,  Characterization  of 272 

Politics,   Standards  of   276 

Public  Life   5 

Public  Life,  Changes  in   8 

Sovereignty  in  the  Philippines 334 

Statesmen,  Characterization  of  272 

Americanization    Campaign,    Backers    of 5 

Campaign  for 5 

Anti-Imperialism  League,  Organization  of 275,  326 

Anti-Imperialist   Movement,    Sources   of   Support 327 

Anti-Trust  Law,  Non-enforcement 76 

Laws 70 

Legislation,  Fate  of   250 

Arid  Land,  Irrigation  of   25 

Armor   Plate,   Cost  of   Manufacture 374 

Profiteering  on    375 

Trust \  ^376 

Army  Ordnance  Association   6 

431 


Banker,  Evolution  of   30 

Bankers  and  Money  Issue 38 

Relation  of,  to  Hard  Times 401 

Banking  and  Government  Function 36 

Parasitic  Nature  of   32 

Power,  Dangers  of  34 

Private  Monopoly  of   32 

Profits  of 31 

Public   Control   Desirable    32 

Supremacy  and  Imperialism 37 

True  Nature  of  30 

Benevolent  Assimilation,   Excuse  for    349 

Bethlehem  Steel,  Profits  of   383 

Big  Business,  Political  Body  Servants  of 280 

Bill   of   Rights,   Origin   of    139 

Black  Hills  Reservation   13 

Bribery  as  a  Business  163 

British  Empire  and  the  Opium  Monopoly 208 

Effects  on  the  People 367 

Imperialism  in   China    353 

Investments,  Volume  of    40 

Record  in  India  368 

Record   in   Ireland    368 

Business  and   Imperialism    311 

And   Politics,   an   Instance 287 

Cycles,  Form  of   45 

Cycles,   Uses   of    45 

Empires,  Development  of   8 

Groups,  Struggle  to  Control  the  Constitution 137 

Interests   and   the   Hawaiian   Revolution 314 

Interests  and   Lawyers    141 

Interests  and   Organized   Labor 114 

Interests,   Presidential  Nomination  by 405 

Men,  Needs  of  and  the  Constitution 134 

Morality,  Instance  of    276 

Campaign  Contributions,  Instance  of  296 

Contributions,  Sources  of  220 

Funds  in  Presidential  Elections  257 

Funds,  Methods  of  Raising 220 

Funds,  Source  of  256 

Capitalism  and  a  Leisure  Class 410 

Character  of 407 

Control  of  Society  by 411 

Exploitation  Under  410 

Failure  of,  in  Russia  389 

In  the  United  States  44 

Typified  by  Profiteering  374 

Capitalist  and  Worker    246 

432 


Carpet-bag  Officials    150 

Central  America  and  American  Imperialism 344 

Central  America,  League  of  Nations  in 346 

Central  Bank  in  Japan 34 

Chaos,   Threat  of    428 

Chattel  Slavery  and  Wage  Slavery 409 

Cheap  Money  and  Rising  Prices 38 

Checks  and  Balances,  and  Democracy 138 

Checks  and  Balances,  Purpose  of 170 

Civil  Liberty  and  the  Constitution 138 

Class  Rule  in  the  United  States 10 

Coal  Mining  Profits  for  1917 384 

Colonial  Treasury  Notes,  Effect  of 50 

Combinations  of  Railroads   90 

Compensated  Dollar  Necessary  34 

Competition   Abandoned   by   America 70 

Accepted    70 

And   Tariff   66 

And    Trusts    70 

Effects  of    72 

In   America    70 

In  Sugar   72 

Concessions,   Sale  of  in   Congress 280 

Congress— Attitude  Toward  Wealth   Distribution 129 

Back  of  Land  Frauds 283 

Dominated  by  Lawyers   141 

Protection  of  Trusts  by 77 

Conquest  of  the  Philippines 334 

Conservation  and  Prosperity  26 

Policy  for   27 

Proposed   Methods    23 

Constabulary,  Work  of,  in  Porto  Rico 359 

Constitution,  Adoption  of,  and  Bill  of  Rights 166 

Amendments  to   139 

And   Human  Liberty   134 

And  the  Business  man 132 

And  the   Declaration  of  Independence 139 

And  the  Rights  of  Man 137 

As  a  Bulwark  to  Exploitation 140 

As  Substitute  for  Revolution 171 

At  the  Mercy  of  the  Courts 170 

First  Amendment   166 

Opposition   in,   to    Democracry 138 

Original  Form  of   138 

Origins 132 

Overturned  by  the  Courts 186 

Constitutional  Convention,  Work  of   164 

Contract  Labor,  Advantage  of   51 

Co-operation,  Necessity  for   116 

433 


Copper  Profits,  Amounts  of  383 

Corporations,  Exploitation  Through   27 

Power  of 60 

Corrupt  Politics,  Instances  of 155 

Corruption  in  the  Senate  207 

Remedy  for    175 

Course  of  Empire  and  the  United  States 364 

Course  of  Empire,  Beginnings  in  the  United  States 330 

Courts  and  Politics    172 

And  the  Railroads   90 

As  Protectors  of  Profiteering  181 

Domination   of,   by   Lawyers    143 

Place  in  Our  Government   196 

Credit  Mobilier    85 

Methods    of    87 

Currency  Issues,  Profits  Through 33 

Democracy  and  the   Constitution 138 

Fear   of,   by   Constitution   Makers 164 

Demonetized  Silver  and  Trusts 71 

Discriminations  by  Railroads 81 

Distribution  of  Wealth,  Facts  of  Concealed 124 

Distribution  of  Wealth  in  America 121 

Du  Pont  Powder  Company,  Profits  of 383 

Economic  Breakdown  in  Capitalist  Society 45 

Power  in   America 118 

System  of  Porto  Rico 356 

Education  of  Lawyers  144 

Elcaney,  Battle  of   240 

Election  of  1920  and  the  Vested  Interests 404 

Significance  of  401 

Empire,  Course  of,  and  the  United  States 364 

Enemy  Countries,  Position  of 396 

Enlightened  Self-Interest,  Instance  of 276 

Espionage  Act,  Decisions  Under 182 

Indictment  Under   377 

Evolution  of  a  Banker   30 

Exploitation  and  Banking 36 

And  Imperialism  352 

As  a  Means  to  Wealth 119 

Form  of,  in  Porto  Rico 356 

Through  Banking  37 

Exploited   Countries,  Position  of   396 

Express  Companies,  Regulation  of   93 

Farm   Tenancy,   Development  of 46 

And  Industrial  Depressions   46 

Federal  Government  and  Property 77 

434 


Federal  Judges,  Disqualifications  of 188 

Training  of  189 

Federal  Legislation,  Character  of  109 

Federal  Reserve  Acts,  Results  of 35 

Federal  Reserve  System,  Earnings  of  36 

Fees,  Effect  of,  on  Lawyers 146 

Example  of,  in  the  Senate 147 

Financial  Concentration  35 

Financial  Imperialism  and  Hawaii 312 

Financial  Power,  Influence  on  Congress 52 

Financing  of  Railroads  84 

First  Opium  War,  Cause  of 353 

Floods,  Control  of 26 

Prevention  of 25 

Forcible  Annexation  of  the  Philippines 331 

Foreign  Capital  in  Hawaii  312 

Foreign  Ownership  of  Railroads  96 

Forest  Frauds  14 

Forest  Policy,  Results  13 

Forest  Reservations  12 

Preservation 14 

Purpose  17 

Formosa,  Control  of,  by  Japan 362 

Frauds  in  Forest  Legislation 15 

Free  Speech  Cases  and  the  Supreme  Court 183 

Convictions  in  183 

Free  Trade,  Result  of,  in  England 59 

Theory  of  58 

Freight  Rates,  Discriminations  in  82 

Gold  Basis,  Necessity  for 39 

And  English  Policy  41 

And  Exploitation  40 

And  Imperialism 39 

Gold  Production,  Effect  on  Prices  48 

Gold  Standard  and  Imperial  Policy  44 

Rejection  of  , 49 

Success  of,  in  Great  Britain 43 

Government  and  Organized  Labor  112 

By  Lawyers  H3J 

By  Landlord  and  Manufacturers 134 

Decay  of  8 

Desirable  Forms  of  174 

Dominated  by  Lawyers  141 

Ownership,  Plans  for  88 

Ownership,  Proposal  for  86 

Ownership  of  Railroads  92 

Government  Bonds,  Jobbing  in  287 

Bond  Sales,  Scandal  of  286 

435 


Governmental  Inefficiency,  Remedies  of   175 

Governments  Represent  the   Standard  of   Peoples 335 

Greenbackism  and  Peter  Cooper 38 

Harbor   Development    26 

Hard  Times,  Beginnings  of  401 

Hawaii  and  Business  Interests 323 

Fight  on  Annexation  of   323 

Foreign  Capital  in   312 

Franchise   in    323 

New  Government  of 321 

Ownership  of,  by  Americans 312 

Seizure    of    318 

Hawaiian  Revolution,  Facts  of  313 

Hawaiian  Treaty,  Ratification  opposed    313 

Hayti,  United   States   Domination  of 347 

Hepburn  Bill    235 

High  Finance  of  Railroads   87 

Homestead  Law  and  the  Republican  Party 252 

Debate  on   253 

Imperial  Policy,  Meaning  of,  to  Human  Rights 330 

Imperialism  and  Big  Business  311-324 

And   Exploitation    352 

And  World  Peace   397 

As   Manifest   Destiny 372 

Beginning  of,  and  Hawaii   323 

Development  of,  in  the  United   States 348 

Effects  of,  in  Ireland  and  India 368 

Essentials  of    347 

Functions   of    330 

Instances  of,  in  American   History   339 

Menace  of,  in  the  United  States 325 

Practices  of   350 

Price   Paid   for    369 

Struggle   Against    132 

The  End  of  Liberty 364 

Income  Tax  Decision  as  an  Usurpation 177 

Independence   Depends   on   the   People 171 

Indian  Lands,  Exploitation  of    288 

Indictment  Under  the  Espionage  Act 377 

IndustrialDepressions   and   Farm   Tenancy 46 

Dates   of    45 

Internal  Improvements,  Indifference  to 26 

International  Competition  and  World  Peace 397 

Invisible    Government    131 

Ireland  as  Example  of  Imperial  Wrong-Doing 368 

Irrigation,  Proposals  for 24 

Opportunities    24 

Possibilities    25 

436 


Japan,  Banking  Experiments  in  33 

Japanese    Imperialism,    Instance    of    362 

Judges,   Character  of   171-186 

Constitutional  Removal  of   191 

Training   of    189 

Judicial  Legislation,  Resort  to   179 

Judicial  Power,  Dangers  of   175-186 

Limitations  on   173 

Judical  Usurpation,  Income  Tax  Cases 177 

Instances  of   176 

Remedies  for   191 

Kettle  Hill,  Battle  of 240 

Labor  and  the  Government 112 

And  Politics   112 

In  America   101 

Cost  of,  and  Hard  Times   402 

Labor  Legislation,  Fate  of 101 

Labor  Movement  and  the  Interests 114 

Rights   of    115 

Standing  in   Congress   115 

Labor   Unions   and   Socialism    110 

Standards   of    245 

Land,  Basic  Nature  of   28 

Land   Frauds   Backed   in   Congress 283 

Instance  of   283 

How   Perpetrated    21 

Land   Grabbing    11 

Land    Grant   Railroads    85 

Financing   of    261 

Graft  of    14 

Origin   of    261 

Property  of    15 

Land   Laws,   Enactment    11 

Land  Ownership,   Exploitation   Through    28 

Law,  Deification  of  by  Lawyers 143 

Lawyer-Government  in  the  United  States 143 

Lawyers  and  the  Courts  143 

And  the   Public   Policy — ? 

As   a   Ruling   Class    149 

As  Guardians  of  Property  145 

As  the   Spokesmen   of   Plutocracy 141 

Control  of  Congress  by 141 

Education  of    144 

Functions   of    141 

Proportion  of,  in  Washington   141 

Qualification  of   144 

437 


League  of  Nations  and   International   Capitalism 399 

A  Holy  Alliance   399 

And   Russia    395 

Authors  of   39r4 

A  War  League    394 

Character   of    394 

Defects   in    398 

Of  Central  America   344 

Purposes  of    398 

Liberty  and  the  People 171 

Decay  of,  in  the  United  States 9 

Sacrificed   to    Imperialism    364 

Limitation  of  Powers  by  the   Constitution 168 

Lobbying  and  the  Vested  Interests 280 

Lost   Bill,    Discovery   of 107 

Machinery,  Displacement  of  Labor  by 126 

Mail  Weighing  and  Fraud  80 

Manifest  Destiny  and  Imperialism 372 

Masses  as  Guardians  of  Liberty 171 

Mexican  War,  Imperial  Purpose  of 339 

Militarism,  Growth  of,  in  the  United  States 365 

Money,  Danger  of  Private  Control 34 

Functions  of 55 

Money  Congresses,  Proceedings  of 41 

Money  Contraction  in  1893 47 

Money  Issue  by  Private  Agencies 38 

Money  Monopoly,  Advocacy  of  51 

Results  of 36 

Money  Power,  Control  by 33 

Danger  of    119 

Irresponsibility  of  36 

National  Bank  Act,  Defects  of 33 

National  Bank  Charters,  Renewal  Opposed  34 

New  York  Bankers  and  Government  Bond  Sales 292 

Next  War,  Basis  for  395 

Preparations  for  7 

Nicaragua,  American  Imperialism  in 345 

Nickel  Industry,  Failure  of  60 

History  of    61 

Oil  Rates,  Discriminations  in   82 

Old  Parties,  Identity  of  Interest 250 

Oligarchy,   Established   by   Courts 171 

Set  Up  in  Hawaii 322 

Opium  Monopoly,  Position  of 208 

Opium  Traffic,  Character  of   353 

Organized  Labor  and  the  Government 112 

438 


Owners  and  Workers 113 

Ownership  of  Railroad   Securities   94 

Panama,  Revolution  in    341 

Seizure    of    340 

Panic  of  1920,  Causes  of 53 

Panics  and  Private  Banking 35 

Panics  in  the  U.  S 45 

Paper  Money,  Privately  Issued   51 

Party  Machines,   Character  of    250 

Party  Politics,  Deceptions  of   254 

Party  Spoils  and  the  Presidents 217 

Patriotism  and  Preparedness  6 

Peace  and  the  League  of  Nations 394 

People  as  the  Final  Authority   171 

People,  Rights  Vested  in 167 

Philippine  Islands  Torn  from  the  Natives 332 

Philippines,    Aggression    in 330 

Results  of  American   Occupation  in 266 

Revolution   in    331 

Plutocracy  and  the  Constitution 140 

And  Lawyers   141 

Defended  in  the  Senate   208 

Growth  of   311 

In  the  United  States  118 

Meaning  of  118 

Menace   of    408 

Power  of,   in   America    120 

Public  Lackeys  of    281 

Rise  of,  to  Power   132 

Supremacy   of    131 

Politicians  As  the  Servants  of  Business 286 

Political   Conventions,   Character  of    251 

In  Washington    157 

Machinery  of   219 

Political  Developments  of  the   Future 428 

Political  Intrigue,  Story  of   158 

Political  Log  Rolling   259 

Political   Machines    217 

Political  Manipulation,  Instances  of   259r 

Political  Parties,  Historic  Purpose  250 

Similarity  of   237,  250 

Political  Servants  of  Big  Business 280 

Political  Standards  in  the  United  States 276 

Politics   and   the   Courts 171 

Characterization  of    272 

Corruption  in  155 

Dependence  of,  on  Contributions    327 

In  the  Territories  151 

439 


Politics  and  the  Courts  in  the  United  States 150 

Pools  of  Railroads 90 

Porto  Rico,  Economic  Conditions  in 359 

Economic  System  of   356 

Wealth  Distribution  in   360 

Post  Office  and   the  Railroads    79 

Post  Office  and  Railroad  Mail  Pay 79 

Power,  Concentration  of,  in  the  United  States 371 

Precedent  and  the  Control  of  Government 144 

Predatory  Wealth,  Weapons  of 78 

Predatory  Interests  Represented  by  Lawyers 143 

Presidential  Appointments,  Abuse  of 221 

Presidential  Veto,  Abuse  of 221 

Presidents  of  the  U.  S.,  Character  of  217 

Lawyers  Among    142 

Nominations  for   218 

Political  Records  of  224 

Renomination  of   218 

Summary  of  Qualities  of   249 

Price  Control  by  Trusts  74 

Price  Reduction,  Methods  of 402 

Panic  of  1920  53 

Private  Interest  Versus  Public  Welfare 16 

Privilege   in   America    118 

Control   of   Government    133 

In  the  Senate   21 

Value   of  the   Constitution  to 140 

Profiteering,   An   Example   of   Capitalism 374 

And  the  Courts 181 

And  Imperialism   355 

Instances  of   383 

Senate  Figures   384 

System  of   , 387 

Profiteers  and  Armor  Plate 375 

And  Imperial  Policy 355 

Progressive  Party,  Organization  of   237 

Progressive  Party  Program,  Writing  of 237 

Property  Protected  by  Lawyers   145 

Protection  of   77 

Property  First  and  Lawyers   146 

Property  Interests,  Defenses  of 130 

Protection  of  in  the  Senate 19 

Property  Rights  and  the  Constitution 135,  164 

Protection  and   the   Republican   Party 68 

Advantages  of   60 

Protectionism,  Meaning  of   67 

Public  Control  of  Banking 32 

Public  Domain,  Disposal   24 

Loss   24 

440 


Public  Domain,  Suggested  Uses 23 

Public  Interest  and  Foreign  Trade 181 

And  the  Law  181 

Public  Lackeying  as  a  Profession  281 

Public  Land,  Sovereignty  in  27 

State  Use  Proposed  23 

Public  Ownership  of  Railroads  78 

Public  Ownership  of  Railroads  Necessary 93 

Public  Plunder  and  Congressional  Backing 284 

Public  Utilities— Power  Over  the  Senate 214 

Public  Welfare  and  the  Senate 68 

Senate   Attitude   on    22 

Quantitative  Theory  of  Money 39 

Railroad  Accidents,   Reporting  of    102 

Railroad   Combinations    90 

Railroad   Finance    261 

Railroad  High  Finance   87 

Railroad   Ownership  vs.   Regulation    235 

Railroad  Passes,  Uses  of,  in  Elections 306 

Railroad   Rate   Reductions,   Possibility   of 262 

Railroad  Regulation,  Attitude  on   235 

Proposals   for    92 

Railroad  Securities,  Fluctuations  of   84 

Ownership    of    94 

Railroads  and  the  Courts 90 

And  the  Law  82 

And   Safety   Appliances    105 

Control  of  Government  by  78 

Discriminations    by    81-261 

Expropriation  of  93 

Financing  of    84" 

Foreign  Ownership  of  96 

Opposition  to  Labor  Legislation   104 

Predatory  Wealth    78 

Public  Ownership  Necessary 78 

Taxing  Power  of   91 

War  Service  of   97 

Watered  Stocks  of   84 

Railway  Mail  Pay,  Corruption  in 79 

Rate   Regulation    Proposed    92 

Rates,    Discriminations   by   Railroads 81 

Republican  Convention  of  1920 403 

Republican  Government  Failure   8 

Republican   Government,  Travesty  of,  in   Hawaii 322 

Republican   Party  and   Protection 68 

And  the  Trusts 205 

Changes   of   Front  of 251 

441 


Republican  Party,  Principles  of   63 

Program  of    406 

Resource   Conservation,   Direction   of    27 

Resources,  Private  Monopoly  of  28 

Revolution  as  An  Escape  from   Tyranny 140 

Preparations   for,   in    Hawaii    316 

Right  of    140 

Revolution  in  Panama  Encouraged  by  the  United  States... 341 

Revolutionary   Scrip     and   the   Constitution 165 

Revolutions  Predicted  in  1900   425 

Rich,  Position  of,  in  America   118 

Rights  of  Man  and  the  Constitution 135 

Right  of  Revolution 140 

Rising  Prices  and  Cheap  Money 38 

Rome,   Greatness   of,    Described    366 

Ruling  Class  Sentiment,  Development  of 10 

Russia  and  the  League  of  Nations 395 

Russian  Bill  of  Rights,  Character  of   389 

Russian  Constitution,  Basic  Idea  of 389 

Russian  Revolution,  Significance  of   389-393 

San  Juan  Hill,  Battle  of   239 

Santo  Domingo,  Control  of,  by  the  United  States 346 

Science  and  Tariff  Legislation 62 

Second  Opium  War,  Causes  of  354 

Secret  Diplomacy  in   America    5 

Secret  War  Preparations   248 

Securities,  Ownership  and  Distribution    94 

Self-Determination,    Provisions    for     392 

Senate,  Able  Men  in 199 

Acceptance  of  Fees  in    147 

And   Labor    Legislation    104 

And   Land  Grabs    20 

And  Property  Interests 19 

And  Public  Welfare  228 

And  the  American  People   198 

And  the  Business  Interests   198 

And  the  Water  Power  Bill 213 

And  Trust   Laws    65 

Atmosphere  of    206 

Business  Interests  and 69 

Committee,   Work  in    205 

Composed  of  Lawyers   198 

Corruption  in 29-6-307 

Decline  in  Importance  of   210 

Loss  of  a  Bill  in 106 

Manipulations   in 67 

Senate   Record,  Alterations  of    209 

Senate  Votes,   Purchase  of    208 

442 


Senators  and  Private  Interests  16 

And   Privilege    21 

As  Hired  Attorneys    147 

As  Servants  of  Privilege   198 

Characteristics    of    201 

Corrupt  Election  of   297 

Mediocrity  of 210 

Rank  and  File  of   203 

Sherman   Law    70 

Silver  Coinage  Feared  by  Monopolists 49 

Slavery,   Conditions  of,  in   Sulu    234 

Economic  Failure  of   50 

Socialism   and   the   Labor    Unions 110 

Solid  South,  Effect  of,  on  Elections 247 

Soviet  Constitution,  Provisions  of   390 

Spanish  Treaty,  Method  of  Passing 206 

And  Political  Manipulation    273 

Proposals    on    274 

Special  Privileges,  Use  of  Tariff  by 62 

Spoils  System    221 

State  Elections  as  Pawns  in  Politics   302 

Statesmen,  Types  of,  in   America 272 

Stock  Dividends,  Decision  on  178 

Stream  Flow,  Regulation   25 

Strikes,    Effects   of    114 

Sugar  Trust  and  the  Tariff  76 

Activities   of    75 

Existence  of,   Questioned    74 

Factors  in    73 

History    of    72 

Organization   of    73 

Sulu,  Treaty  with  226 

Supply  and  Demand  Applied  to  Money 38 

Supreme  Court  and  Free  Speech   Cases 184 

Abolition   Demanded    187 

And   Other   Government   Departments 170 

And  Public  Interest  181 

And   Tenth  Amendment    177 

Dangers  of  Usurpation   by    168 

Decision  on   Salary   Income   Tax 179 

Decision  on  Stock  Dividends   178 

Emotionalism    of    185 

Espionage  Act  Decisions 182 

Fallibility    of    190 

Interprets  the  Constitution    169 

Jurisdiction  of  193 

Power  to  Throw  Out  Laws '.','.  169 

Steel  Trust  Decision    180 

443 


Supreme  Court  Judges,   Qualities  of    190 

Call   for   Impeachment   of    ' .  133 

Surplus  Wealth  and  Capitalism ' "   44 

Tariff 57 

Tariff   and    Competition 66 

Advantages  of 57 

And  Monopoly  Power 57 

And   the   Sugar   Trust    76 

And   Trusts    64 

Behind  the  Trusts   . .  284 

Effects  of,  on   Hawaiian   Sugar 315 

For  Special   Privilege    62 

Lines  of  Attack  on   68 

Purposes  of 57.  69 

Science   of    62 

Tariff   Commission,  Necessity  for    57 

Tariff  Duties,   Purposes  of    20  i 

Tariff  Legislation,  Jugglery  with    224 

Tenth   Amendment  and   the   Supreme   Court 177 

Territorial   Politics    151 

Third  Party,  Efforts  to  Organize   324 

Third  Party  Movement,  Causes  of  Failure   328 

Trade,  Logical  Basis  for 58 

Treaty  with   Sulu    226 

Trust   Activities    121 

Trust  Control  of  Prices    75 

Trusts  and   Demonetized   Silver 71 

And  Falling  Prices  71 

Cost  of,  to  the  People 75 

Court   Decisions   and    , 180 

Effects  of   72 

Era  of   70 

Lines  of  Attack  on   68 

New  Power  of  8 

Object  of    71 

Opposition  to   70 

Political  Control  by   68 

Power   of    83 

Present  Status  of  77 

Price    Control   by    74 

Protected  by  Congress    77 

Protection   for    69 

Remedy  for    65 

Tyranny,  Bulwark  Against   168 

And    Revolution    140 

Unequal  Wealth  Distribution,  Machinery  and 127 

United  States  and  the  World  War 377 

Banking  Supremacy  of  37 

444 


United  States,  Concentration  of  Power  in 371 

Control  by  the  Plutocracy   48 

Growth  of  Plutocracy  in    311 

Menace  of  Imperialism  in    324 

World   Position  of    8 

United  States  Judges,  Training  of   189 

Unreasonableness  as  Interpreted  by  Courts 180 

Usurpation  by  Supreme  Court   168 

Denied  to  English   Courts    169 

Usurpation  of   Power,   Danger  of 167 

Vested  Interests  and  the  1920  Election 404 

And  the  Constitution  135 

Defense  of,  by  the  Senate 206 

Representation  of,  in  the  Senate 262 

Service  of  Lawyers  to  141 

Vote   Buying  in  the   Senate 208 

Wage  Rates  in  Porto  Rico   359 

Wage  Slavery  and   Chattel   Slavery 409 

War  as  Chaos  429 

And  the  League  of  Nations  394 

Financial   Purposes   of    386 

Object  of    385 

Preparation    for    7 

War  Department,  Propaganda  of   6 

War  Preparations,  Secret,  in  1917 248 

War  Profiteers  and  Preparedness  6 

War  Profits,  Volume  of   384 

Water   Power,   Seizure   of 28 

Public  Development  of 25 

Water    Storage    25 

Watered  Stocks  of  Railroads   84 

Wealth,  Concentration  of 113 

Distribution   of,   in   America 120 

Facts  on  Distribution  of 121 

Methods  of  Securing   119 

Through  Watered  Stock   120 

Wealth  Census,  Efforts  to  Secure 124 

Wealth  Concentration  in  Railroad  Securities 96 

Wealth  Distribution,  Attitude  of  Congress  towards 129 

Changes  in  122 

Necessity  for  Information  concerning 126 

Wealth  Lords,  Government  by   134 

Worker  and  Capitalist   246 

Workers,  Position  of,  in  America 101 

World   Peace   and   Competitive  Imperialism 397 

World  War,  Economic  Reasons  for  Entering 376 

445 


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